Original Nose: An Open Letter to Tommy

Dear Tommy,

In December of 2004 you wrote:

Isaiah isn't my real name. It's Tommy. I was born a Thomas the III, childhood friends called me Top cat, my old band-mates called me TC, I'm known as "dad" to my son, my associates call me Tom and my wife sometimes calls me every name in the book. When I first thought about designing my presence here on the web I knew I didn't want to use my real name because I wanted to free this "Tommy" to do some writing outside of himself. Not that it really matters to anyone but me- but, I caught a breath of freshness taking on the new identity of "isaiah."

Sometimes I think we become confined by our name and identity. The sound of our name, the letters that spell it out, and the years of baggage we have accumulated can act as a holding cell. We become so accustomed to our character that the world becomes old and stale.

The opposite of this can be true as well. The sound of our name from our lover's lips can make us light as air and take us to the edge of ecstasy and over. There's a sweetness that echoes through the house when I hear my son call out, "Hey dad." We create soothing works of music, art, poetry or craft a fine piece of wood- work which we are then compelled to autograph and hold forever as our very own.

So which is the case? Do names confine us or free us? Do we choose to hold on to old notions about our character and limit the roles we can play or can we find the courage to break free from the ego we have created in order to discover new and exciting- limitless possibilities?

One of my favorite quotes is from the great writer Susan Sontag who died yesterday. It helps me to see beyond myself into the realm of the Divine:
"The only interesting answers are the ones that destroy the question."

What is really in a name anyway?

You ask good questions. To me the interesting questions are the ones that destroy the answers; questions that leave one speechless, questions that the mind cannot get itself around and has it fall silent, questions that short-circuit the logical, linear sequential dominion of rational thought, questions that lead to a silent openness, questions that by their very nature deconstruct our desperate, exclusive allegiance to a mind identified self. The questions that arise from an interest and curiosity in waking up fuel worthwhile discovery and realization. Without that impulse to awakening there would be no path and no fruition. Without the questions and inquiry that lead us into silence, there would be no enlightening at all. Thank you for your courage to inquire.

What is really in a name anyway?

We name things and we think we know them. With names we give things an identity. With names we identify self and other. This is a natural function of our minds and there is nothing wrong in it. However there is an innocent misperception which results in the identity -- that which can be named and is a small thing, a functional and utilitarian servant -- playing the role of king. When things are in their proper places, everything takes care of itself and the whole world is uplifted. Our humanness is infinitely enriched by Being. But our Being is usually eclipsed and occluded by our sleeping preoccupation with our humanity, our identification exclusively with the personality -- our character jacket.

Earlier this year Jon at The Wild Things of God asked about getting to know me better. I wrote the following:

We could get to know one another, the history, the details of our sweet/sad enterprise through time and space. The joys and the heartbreak... On the other hand, there is a larger risk available. Although I do not know you at all, there is an unspeakable intimacy we already share, a divine space weaving us together in a miraculous way. Poets reach for that space, that love light, and fail like we all do. The chasm is too great, the gulf too wide, yet we leap anyway. And in the basic trust of this sacred act, the chasm is crossed, the gulf evaporates and we are pulled through the gate, as John Tarrant says, without the use of our own hands. Existence, graceful presence, does it for us. What is impossible to the mind, may happen through an open, trusting heart. It is a wonderful mystery, like you are my friend. Even if we "got to know one another," what would we really come to know? What do we know of our loved ones, family and friends? Do we really know them? We may think we know who someone is, but that knowing is very limited. Even someone we have lived with for years, do we really know them? Do we know our husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, best friends? How could you know another? They are a fathomless mystery. How can we know vastness, wholeness, being? Do we know who we are? Plumb your own depth within and you will find eternity, an infinite space that goes on and on. You are a vastness that can never be known. If I had your profile down to the minute details, I would not have scratched the surface of who/what you are. But I can look within and know your heart, because we share the same throbbing heart. And although I do not know you, I am in love with this vastness that both you and I share beyond our personalities.

I will never know my friend Meredith. She remains a beautiful mystery to me, so alive, so fresh. She is much more than her personality, psychology, accomplishments, relationships, and the things she owns, so much more than her ego identity. These are small things that we attach such significance to. In a few short days all these things we cling to so desperately will be gone. Everything will be taken from us, our body, thoughts, emotions, our relationships with family and friends, our home and possessions, even the sun and moon and stars - all gone. They are temporary and provisional, impermanent. Even now they slip from our grasp.

The mind wants to figure out, understand and know. Wholeness is bigger than that. It will not be confined to the knowable. The mind divides, knowing divides. The whole can not be divided. It is whole, containing both the knowable and unknowable. And the knowable is so small, the unknowable is vast, endless.

Being is a vast mystery. It takes a leap, from the margin of knowing into the unknowable abyss.

Tommy, you invited me to share my journey, all that makes me Akilesh. The question goes to who or what I am. And it is a good question, a question I do not take lightly. It is a rare and precious question when asked with sincerity. It is the kind of question that can break up the frozen ice of living one's life inside the small box of ego consciousness. It is the kind of question that calls into question cherished beliefs and assumptions, hopes and dreams. If pursued it can disrupt the foundational aspects of one's identity, something that goes largely unquestioned in our culture and even in our spiritual seeking. Rather than deeply inquiring into the question, who am I, and coming to terms with the suffering and broken heartedness that is an inevitable part of such inquiry, all too often the spiritual search is more about escaping from such destabilizing questions; escaping from suffering and a broken heart, finding a shortcut from misery and dissatisfaction. Too often the spiritual search is about finding a once-and-for-all enlightenment, a static state of happiness and peace. States of peace and happiness exist but, just like everything else, they are impermanent, they do not last. And we find ourselves back "here" again facing what is.

The journey of enlightening, the quest to realize who you are, while as close as your breath, is not so simple. Through the process of social conditioning and programming we come to make an innocent mistake, a misidentification. And with this mistake our authentic presence recedes into the background of our consciousness and our small self, the ego, the little me, the psychological personality, takes up residence in the foreground, as the sovereign, as king of the world. After this innocent mistake everything becomes self referential -- "my" self, "my" family, "my" house, "my" body, "my" mind and emotions, "my" world. My, me. This is ego consciousness, fixation upon self-identity, what Tolle calls the mind identified self.

Many sages of the past have likened living in ego consciousness as living in a dream. They have often used the metaphor of waking up from the dream of a separate self. When we are asleep in this dream, entranced, hypnotized by our conditioning, our entire enterprise through time and space is informed and animated by the limited context of ego consciousness. It is sad that most of us live out our lives and die in this box, without ever having made the journey, set out on the quest to realize our true nature.

When we believe wholly in the dream and move always within the confines of the dream, from the limited context of ego fixation, all of our relating to the other, whether to people or things, occurs inside of ego consciousness. In this way the relating is limited to separate entities relating to one another out of separateness. In other words when we connect with others we most often connect on the level of ego consciousness. While this is not bad, it is limited. There is no possibility of true connection, of communion when relating occurs between separate entities. The innocent mistake and the living of one's life out of ego consciousness excludes the possibility of communion. In the absence of communion, relationship that is based on ego consciousness, based on the interaction between mind identified selves is often marked by conflict and dissatisfaction of some sort.

In the context of ego consciousness when we reach out to another, we are reaching out in a dream, from one separate self to another separate self, and trying to connect with them, trying to find a communion with them. What we find is limited and often unsatisfying. Yet when that’s all we are aware of, it is what forms the basis of our relating: we are more interested in the superficial aspects of the individual, their personality, their history, their character, the self. This is what we want to know about, and what we connect with as separate selves. This is what is important and emphasized in most human interactions. Spiritual rhetoric notwithstanding, this is what we seek when we want to get to know someone better. It is our conditioned default mode. It is unquestioned, and to question it has one be considered a little crazy.

Meredith writes on the how the personal and personality has its place, and enriches our experience of Being. She reminds me that the enlightenment quest is not the only purpose in life. Life is bigger than that. Obviously life is curious about the play of energy as it manifests in artistic and creative expression, in painting, sculpture, dance, music, poetry and creative writing; in richly textured emotional experiences, in adventure and travel, in physical expression, sports and athletic challenges, in sexual play, in the exploration of knowledge and intellectual growth, in science, medicine and healing, in the rich experiences related to kinship and friendship, in parenting and child-rearing, in a rewarding livelihood, in humor, and in so many other diverse ways. Just one example among an infinite number, listen to Apertura by Gustavo Santaolalla from Motorcycle Diaries. This creative effort came from a personality, an ego. The contact lenses I wear were designed and made by human ego.

Jon at The Wild Things of God posted a quote from Eckhart Tolle's most recent book, A New Earth:

You are a human being. What does that mean? Mastery of life is not a question of control, but of finding a balance between human and Being. Mother, father, husband, wife, young, old, the roles you play, the functions you fulfill, whatever you do-all that belongs to the human dimension. It has its place and needs to be honored, but in itself it is not enough for a fulfilled, truly meaningful relationship or life. Human alone is never enough, no matter how hard you try or what you achieve. Then there is Being. It is found in the still, alert presence of Consciousness itself, the Consciousness that you are. Human is form. Being is formless. Human and Being are not separate but interwoven.

Both the human and the Being are important. But we've got things backwards. We have the real king and queen dressed in paupers clothing sitting in the back row, smiling with infinite patience. And we have Ego the Pretender-Who-Thinks-He’s-Not-Pretending on the throne, front and center in our consciousness. Our Being is often relegated to spiritual parlor conversation while our day to day, moment to moment fidelity remains with the false face of our character jacket, the image and belief structure of ego consciousness, with the security and familiarity of our conditioned identity. We are devoted to the world of personality and to the stories that give us a security blanket: an identity and a sense of belonging in this world. With this nearly exclusive emphasis we live the life of a somnambulist, we are misshapen, entranced lifelong, and we go to the grave missing the richness and depth available in awakening within this precious human life.

Realizing our innocent mistake, waking up from the trance of a separate self places our vastness, our godliness on the throne and relegates our personality and rationality to the appropriate role of servant. And once we have experienced this waking up we keep a fidelity to this Freedom moment to moment, forever. We give it our moment to moment appreciation, as the true sovereign of our world, as the universal monarch -- what some have called the Self or God. From the human side our awakening seems to require this ongoing fidelity if it is not to default back into the conditioned dream of ego fixation.

The imprint of ego fixation runs very deep in the human being. Tied to survival and security and replication, it is a very, very powerful, seductive and subtle illusion. It is multilayered and in my experience always remains by the side, as a default, a conceptual context or pseudo-sanctuary ready to receive the frightened identity back into the familiar confines of the cocoon, of conditioned existence, of consensus reality. The depth, power and reach of our conditioning and programing deserves respect. It is a pervasive and socially sanctioned trance that we have going on to some degree all the time while we are in a physical body. Overcoming the ego is not killing it or having it disappear, but freeing yourself from your fixation upon it, your identification with it, and having it take its rightful place as servant instead of master.

Who is Akilesh? The short answer: I don't know. The name is Hindi for King of the World or King of All. I was given this name many years ago by my teacher, (who would certainly have something to say about me referring to him as a teacher). Miserable, lost and confused in the spiritual supermarket at the time, the name was like a radioactive particle embedded in my chest -- there was going to be a reaction of some sort, and in my case it was a meltdown. King of the World! How was I to discern the meaning of this koan? How was the personality to contextualize this? How was little me going to get his head around this? How to contain it? "What is really in a name anyway?" Working on this koan over time precipitated an alchemical melting down of my identity.

There is an old saying, "To go down is to go up." Before illumination there seems to be the need for descent. It seems we do everything we can to avoid this descent. Recently Meredith wrote to me on the subject of fear, how it arises from a "lack of feeling loved - a deep, and fundamental perception of unworthiness, of feeling bereft of love."

My journey begins with fear, it begins in darkness.

I will speak from a felt sense, out of an intuitive, dark space, as opposed to a clear, rational, linear-sequential, well-lit and thoughtful place. The former is more trustworthy than the latter. I start with shadow. I came out of shadow into light. For most of my life I walked backward, facing a long shadow. I have turned around and now face the rising sun, but I often look behind to pay respect to the shadow and remember where I came from. This is useful when journeying in any wilderness.

Like you, I was born nameless, faceless, open, at large. With the necessary socialization of my culture, my conditioning and programing, I took on a self-identity and wedded myself to it to survive and succeed in conventional life. In childhood and adolescence I always felt something to be missing in this life. My role models - parents, clergy, civic leaders, teachers, professors, elders all seemed to be out of touch with what my heart told me was authentic. They seemed to be in some kind of trance which I was gradually being indoctrinated into. Many of my most powerful role models seemed to subscribe to a selfish, aggressive approach to life, however subtle or sophisticated. They seemed childish with grown up bodies, striving for security, preoccupied with survival no matter how wealthy, intelligent or advanced in years. They were concerned with acquisition and security, collecting material goods, relationships and experiences, constantly trying to control the conditions and circumstances of their lives. And in my young opinion they confirmed that the depth and range of a "normal" human life was overall animated and informed by "quiet desperation." When I looked in them I saw fear and insecurity deep down, no matter how together or powerful they appeared on the surface. When I looked inside myself I saw the same thing, felt the same fear and insecurity. So I investigated, inquired into this fear, could not leave it alone, and it lead me deeper into darkness, into sadness and suffering. I do not know why I continued to look into this, perhaps the fathomless depth of the abyss was seductive. It had a gravity like pull that attracted me, like the curiosity that pulls you to the edge of a precipice, so you can look down. I wanted to look down into that darkness. I wanted to swan dive into that dark vastness of fear and sadness, to immerse myself in it, that I might learn the secret of it’s dark energy and understand it.

In August 1994 Harper's magazine published excerpts of an interview of Ken Kesey by Robert Faggan in the spring issue of The Paris Review. In that interview Kesey was asked by Faggan what he wanted to explore when he set out on the bus with a band of "merry pranksters" in 1964.

Kesey: What I explore in all my work: wilderness. Settlers on this continent from the beginning have been seeking wilderness and its wildness. The explorers and pioneers sought that wildness because they could sense that in Europe everything had become locked tight. Things were all owned by the same people, and all of the roads went in the same direction forever. When we got here there was a sense of possibility and new direction, and it had to do with wildness. Throughout the work of James Fenimore Cooper there is what I call the American terror. It's very important to our literature, and it's important to who we are: the terror of the Hurons out there, the terror of the bear, the avalanche, the tornado -- whatever may be over the next horizon.

As we came to the end of the continent we manufactured our terror. We put together the bomb. Now we don't even have the bomb hanging over our heads to terrify us and give us reason to dress up in manly deerskin and go forth to battle it. There's something we’re afraid of, but it doesn't have the clarity of the terror of the Hurons or the hydrogen bomb during the Cold War. Now it's fuzzy, and it's fuzzy because the people who are in control don't want you to draw a bead on the real danger, the real terror in this country.

Faggan: What is the "real terror" in America?
Kesey: When people ask me about LSD, I always make a point of telling them you can have the shit scared out of you with LSD because it exposes something, something hollow. Let's say you have been getting on your knees and bowing and worshiping; suddenly you take LSD, and you look, and there's just a hole, there's nothing there. The Catholic Church fills this hole with candles and flowers and litanies and opulence. The Protestant Church fills it with handwringing and pumped up squeezing emotions because they can't afford the flowers and candles. The Jews fill this hole with weeping and browbeating and beseeching of the sky: "How long, how long are you gonna treat us like this?" The Muslims fill it with rigidity and guns and a militant ethos. But all of us know that that's not what is supposed to be in that hole.

After I had been at Stanford for two years, I got into LSD. I began to see that the books I thought were the true accounting books -- my grades, how I'd done in other schools, how I'd performed at jobs, whether I had paid off my car or not -- were not at all the true books. There were other books that were being kept, real books. In those books is the real accounting of your life. And the mind says, "Oh, this is titillating." So you want to take some more LSD and see what else is there. And soon I had the experience that everyone who's ever dabbled in psychedelics has. A big hand grabs you by the back of the neck, and you hear a voice saying, "You want to see the books? Okay, here are the books." And it pushes your face right down into all of your cruelties and all of your meanness, all of the times that you have been insensitive, intolerant, racist, sexist. It's all there, and you read it. You can't take your nose up off the books. You hate them. You hate who you are. You hate the fact that somebody has been keeping track, just as you feared. You hate it, but you can't move your arms for eight hours. Before you take any acid again you start trying to juggle the books. You start trying to be a little better person. Then you get the surprise. The next thing that happens is that you're leaning over looking at the books, and you feel the lack of the hand at the back of your neck. The thing that was forcing you to look at the books is no longer there. There's only a big hollow, the great American wild hollow, which is scarier than hell, scarier than purgatory or Satan. It's the fact that there isn't any hell and there isn't any purgatory, there isn't any Satan. And all you've got is Sartre sitting there with his mama -- harsh, bleak, worse than guilt. And if you've got courage, you go ahead and examine that hollow.

Faggan: And that hollow is, for you, the new wilderness?
Kesey: That's the new wilderness. It's the same old wilderness, just no longer up on that hill or around that bend, or in that gully. It's because there are no more hills and gully's that the hollow is there, and you've got to explore the hollow with faith. If you don't have faith that there is something down there, pretty soon when you're in the hollow, you begin to get scared and start shaking. That's when you stop taking acid and start taking coke and drinking booze and start trying to fill the hollow with depressants and Valium. Real warriors like William Burroughs or Leonard Cohen or Wallace Stevens examine the hollow as well as anybody; they get in there, look far into the dark, and yet come out with poetry.

One could replace the reference to LSD in the foregoing with spiritual inquiry, which for me precipitated the appearance of the hollow, the black hole, the horror. But courage was not my strong suit and I tried my best to run away, tried to escape it in every way I could think of. I tried to fill the hole with distractions and entertainments of all kinds (and in fear I conceived of and acted out many escape fantasies, some of which deeply hurt my loved ones, some of which turned into conventionally noteworthy accomplishments). It had become a matter of avoidance, desperately avoiding the darkness, the fear and sadness. But now it followed me - like a shadow. Again and again I circled back to the unresolved dark matter in the heart. And how I resisted and denied what was plainly in evidence.

I used to climb alpine peaks (one of my escapes) and often we had one or two camps set up on the approach to a summit. From the highest camp on the mountain we would get up at 2:00 a.m. for the best climbing conditions for the final push to the summit. It takes exertion and a certain fierceness to persevere in the challenging conditions of an alpine environment to overcome the forces opposing you and "bag" the peak. I used the same qualities to negotiate the day to day world of work. I brought these qualities to the pursuit of enlightenment.

I hurt, I was suffering, I had a dissatisfaction that nothing would appease, and here were sages on the shelves of Barnes and Noble telling of a possible way out. I had particular interest in anything that appeared to have shortcuts. I was all for taking the shortest route out of my pain. So I read and studied and applied myself with the vigor of a high alpine climber in my pursuit of authenticity, to bag the peak of enlightenment. But such a peak cannot be taken by force, authentic presence cannot be stormed like a citadel. A Rocky Balboa cannot box his way into heaven. But what did I know, I just tried to apply what I’d learned in my conditioned life to the unconditioned, and failed miserably again and again. And I mean miserably, wretchedly, pathetically, with all the superlative, narcissistic hyperbole that attends an ego fixation as big as a freight train. I hurt myself, I hurt others, especially those closest to me. The harder I pushed for the light of the summit, the darker the night; the faster I climbed, the longer the route that stretched out before me. The higher I climbed to heaven, the lower I fell into hell. I was lost.

What was going on? I did not know, but gradually I began to see how my suffering was linked to my resistance; how my need for control, my pushing and pulling, was tied to suffering; and how letting go, accepting what is, brought openings. The rub was: accepting what is was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt deeply impoverished and was doing everything I could to fight depression and despair. ("Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.") I resisted the gaping maw of the abyss, this expanding black hole opening up within me, pulling me down and sucking the strength out of me with it’s dark gravity.

Nothing worked, every conceivable option failed, until I just gave up. I just sat down in a darkness that appeared to go on forever, and for all I knew it would go on forever. I just sat down and gave up trying, trying to get something or push anything away. I gave up striving. This didn’t come as a glorious insight, rather it was out of shameful exhaustion. I had exhausted all angles, all shortcuts, everything my mind could think of to solve the koan of my suffering, and failed. The mind road was a dead end, and in my case the dead end was a very dark place, and felt like what I imagined death to feel like. I had applied all the thinking and doing I could muster and all I had left was this vast darkness, as if I were immersed in an endless dark dream: "there's just a hole, there's nothing there... There's only a big hollow... which is scarier than hell, scarier than purgatory or Satan. It's the fact that there isn't any hell and there isn't any purgatory, there isn't any Satan."

I took comfort from others who seemed to have gone into the dark and come out with beauty. For example in After the Fall, by Arthur Miller, where the character Helga shares the following:

Quentin, I think it is a mistake to ever look for hope outside one's self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cut his finger off, within a week you’re climbing over the corpses of children bombed in a subway. What hope can there be if that is so? I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned each night until I dared not go to sleep and grew quite ill. I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes, until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to it's broken face, and it was horrible... but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one's life in one's arms, Quentin.

Or from the poem, The Man Watching by Rilke.

I can tell by the way the trees beat,
After so many dull days
on my worried window panes
that a storm is coming,
And I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
And the world looks as if it had no age;
The landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
Is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny,
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
We would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it with small things,
And the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament;
When the wrestlers' sinews
grew long like metal strings,
He felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this angel
(who often simply declined to fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
That kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
By constantly greater things.

Or this poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

But off apart there, who is that?
His path gets lost in the brush;
Behind him close
The branches together,
The grass stand straight up again,
The solitude swallows him up.

Ah, who can heal the pain
Of one whose balsam became poison?
Who has drunk misanthropy
From the fullness of love?
First despised, now despising,
He secretly wastes
His own worth
In unsatisfying selfishness.

If there is in you Psalter,*
Father of Love, a single tone
Perceptible to his ear,
Then revive his heart!
Open his cloud covered sight
To the thousand fountains
Beside the thirsting soul
In the desert.

*Book of Psalms

I start with shadow because I feel there is a strong tendency to circumvent this aspect of spiritual awakening. Without coming to terms with one’s shadow energies, including and expressed in the various psychological wounds of the personality, a seeker is almost always trying to find a short cut or escape hatch from suffering, and in the process denying what is. A deep, genuine acceptance of what is, including the courage to include the shadow energies, seems to be a good starting point on the path. Without this the seeker is usually projecting a path of enlightenment on top of and in reaction to the shadow and deep woundedness. Beside all the various psychological and physical wounds we carry from growing up and individuating, there is the deep wound of separation from our true nature to begin with.

The Jungians say the shadow will have its day. Unless one comes to terms with and make a place for these energies, which are nearly always repressed in the unconscious, they will eventually erupt and assert themselves with a vengeance. We stuff away many unacceptable, unresolved issues in what Robert Bly calls that long bag we drag behind us through life. We have put all our rejected darkness in an opaque jar and screwed the lid down. When we begin to wake up, it is like removing the lid of repression, and like Adyashanti observes: all this material wants to move into the light of illumination, our stuff comes rushing out into the light of conscious awareness. This can be shocking and destabilizing psychologically.

This eruption of repressed and denied shadow energy and subsequent fall from grace can be excruciatingly difficult for those who are apparently highly evolved and spiritually adept. Even for one who has had a profound and persistent enlightenment experience, if there is repression of dark matter in that individual’s human personality, that stuff is going to manifest at some point. We have all heard the stories...

It has been said we live in a world marked by perfection and purity. But without genuine realization of this in one’s Being, there is the tendency of the mind to jump over or short cut around pain and project perfection in the form of an enlightenment story. When disillusionment occurs the collapse may unconceal the presence of a mental construct, a denial of what is and a projection of freedom through the use of belief and stories of liberation we repeat to ourselves. The projection of perfection is built over the top of an image of a hostile and aggressive world, and is often extended to someone who we can adore or revere, someone who may or may not actually be adorable. It is believed, perhaps through the power of positive thinking or affirmation, that we can transform what is into what we want or think it should be like. This may work for a while, but doesn’t work in the long run.

Projection of perfection upon a teacher makes him or her the source of our salvation and redemption. In this way we try to avoid responsibility for having to face our suffering, and for our own awakening. But with this unholy alliance we give away our freedom and power. There are many, many teachers who accept this Faustian deal with seekers. The teacher plays his or her part, and may very well have unresolved shadow energies operating in the background of the student/teacher relationship. You can see this playing out frequently: the desperation of seekers trying to short cut their suffering matching up with the need of teachers to have students loving them, projecting warmth and wisdom upon them, depending upon them. It’s a wild, unregulated party going on out there on the spiritual frontier.

Having examined some of the potential mischief in setting out on the spiritual quest, there is nonetheless tremendous wisdom and warmth in this world which genuinely encourages and nurtures the spiritual quest. In my experience it is worth the risk to inquire into this "basic goodness" which manifests in many ways and is available to us if we open ourselves to it. The basic goodness of the world manifests in ordinary magic, synchronicity and meaningful coincidence. We can use these energies to help us cultivate and deepen our love of and fidelity to what is.

The following is an example of ordinary magic present in the world, and which I found helpful on my journey. Here is Wolf Moon speaking from the native American tradition in a poetic and lyrical way on the Crow power totem:

Night descends upon the ancient forest as a silky shawl of midnight blue, settling over all that she encounters upon her journey, she leaves everything she touches changed in the shimmering veil of her silver light. Perched atop the hard surface of granite boulders that dot the mountainside, Crow stands, head cocked to the side, affording him a gaze of the moon, as she rides the pathway of the autumn sky. From the beginning of the time when Great Spirit transformed Crow from the form of a two-legged to the shape he now wears, Crow has dwelled simultaneously in Two Worlds, one of the earth and the other of the sky. He is the Watcher that has observed we of the two-legged as we walk along the Red Road of Physical Life. He stands ever vigilant, at the Gateway between shadow and light, watching for the Soul that is beginning to Unfold, and then with a beckoning call, black wings touch our face, and we journey with him, flying from the night of denial, and awakening with acknowledgments Day.

I doubt that Wolf Moon has had formal training in Jungian psychology but you can feel the same tenor of consolation in both traditions with respect of the inclusion of the shadow, the dark matter in this world view. Listen to the wisdom of Jung echoing in words from the Native American tradition, again Wolf Moon:

Part of the process is uncovering the Shadows Within that all possess along this Earth Walk. There are areas of our Self that represent our greatest lessons and opportunities for growth, yet can remain elusive to our grasp and understanding. However once these ‘shadows’ have been fully understood and integrated, then the journey upward to the light of the Higher Self can be easily attained and serve as inspiration for Others. To achieve this demands that one go Within and illuminate all of the corners of the subconscious where shadows still linger. To open the door to the corridors of pain where the past still haunts the soul, and shed the Light of awareness so that true Healing may occur... (Crow souls) exist simultaneously within two worlds, that of the Spirit and that of the Flesh..."

Here is the simultaneous Being in two worlds, the One in the many, form is empty, emptiness is form. To deny either is to deny the Totality.

Twenty years after receiving the koan Akilesh, the meaning I continued to ascribe to my darkness was one of fear. But was the darkness actually the source of my fear? Without attaching any meaning to it, was it causal with respect to my fear? Regardless, it was the most "real" presence within me so I (kicking and screaming) made a place for it. I gradually began exploring my dark surroundings, bringing some acceptance to this infinite space, this "big hollow," this void. I recalled various teachings I had heard in the past, the most prominent being my teacher’s words, something to the effect of, "I have nothing to give you. I have only something to take from you, an illusion." But I was very, very attached to this illusion, and the strength of my attachment required strong medicine. I was deeply asleep in the trance of self-identification. I received what in hindsight was a powerful catalyst: I was given the name Akilesh, King of the World. It's no stretch at all to see the cosmic humor in this name - "What is really in a name anyway?" - and I've often laughed out loud at this joke, at it's dynamic range: from megalomania to nobodiness.

In his book Doing Nothing, Steven Harrison writes:

The little boy was drawing when his mother noticed and asked, "What are you drawing, Jimmy?"
The little boy without looking up, answered, "A picture of God."
"But Jimmy," his mother replied, "Nobody knows what God looks like."
"They will once I'm finished."

Who can draw God? Only one who realizes God’s face. With this realization they look out of the eyes of God, they radiate God’s Original Face to others. Jimmy is a young King of the World. In the child there is a natural lightness and radiance, a based-on-nothing confidence in the recognition of Divinity.

Yesterday the December 2005 issue of Harper's magazine arrived in the mail. The issue has an article by Eric Reece entitled Jesus Without the Miracles. In the article Reece writes on Thomas Jefferson's Bible and the Gospel of Thomas. The following is an excerpt:

The Jesus of Thomas's gospel is simply trying to give us back something we already possess. Here is a crucial passage:

Jesus said, "Images are visible to people, but the light within them is hidden in an image of the fathers light. He will be disclosed, but his image is hidden by the light."
Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you are happy. But when you see your images that come into being before you and that neither die nor become visible, how much will you bear!"

There is an empirical way of knowing, and there is an intuitive way of understanding. The "father's light" exists within everyone and "will be disclosed," but we cannot know it intellectually -- we cannot give it an image. Likewise, we comprise two selves -- the one we see in the mirror, and the face we had before we were born. This last paradoxical image exists in nearly all mystical literature -- Zen koans, the Kabbalah, the Upanishad's -- and here, in the Gospel of Thomas. To "see" this imageless image, to know this original self, is to arrive at a nexus where the light within illuminates the world without, and finally shows it for what it truly is -- the kingdom of God. For that reason, the kingdom must exist simultaneously within and without. When Jesus' followers ask him to show them "where you are, for we must seek it," Jesus replies, "There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world."

Tommy, you gave me a gift in the form of an invitation, "Show me where you are. Tell me who you are. Would you share your journey, all that makes you who you are?" I want to return a gift to you: "Show me where you are. Tell me who you are." To exchange these gifts is to share "...light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world."

There is a human personality here, with his-story, with hopes and fears, dreams, successes and failures. There is the whole psychology, and the physical form, birth, maturity, and eventually, certain death. There are the roles and personality traits with which you would identify me: son, father, mate, professional, friend... But who are you identifying really? More importantly where are you placing your precious attention? With this attention - and the thought stream that follows so quickly as to be nearly imperceptible - you create the world. Nothing less than that, creating the world out of your thinking. Where is your fidelity, where are you placing your precious trust and faith? Upon what are you showering your love and appreciation? It may not look or feel like you are loving and appreciating something, but you are, and often it is on "the epic of little me." You may not realize that your jewel beyond price, your naked awareness, the authentic source of warmth and wisdom in the universe, is allowing itself to pretend it is "little me," an impermanent construct of thinking, feeling, and bodily sensation with which we identify and call a self.

From my perspective my teacher related to me like I was a young king who was deeply asleep to his godliness. I approached him from personality. He spoke to the godliness within me rather than to my suffering personality. I felt myself to be a victim of the conditions and circumstances of my life situation and that I needed help, relief from this suffering. Again from my perspective his attitude was:

Who is needing help? You are a king! Step out of your own way, wake up and see that the whole treasury is yours. It lives within you, whole and complete, and is available everywhere and at all times. Wake up, you are a monarch, and although you do not possess a kingdom or subjects, the entire universe is your playground. As a king you can celebrate, you can rejoice for you have all you need and so much more. Wake up to the vast riches, the generosity, warmth and innocence that is your inherent nature. Wake up to all the energy vibrantly at play around and within you. This energy is your body dancing. This is your very own energy bouncing back at you. You send it out and it returns to you and a dance of rejoicing communion emerges. Even in the storms you dance, in the wind and the rain. Even when you are filled with fear, you appreciate the wakefulness that can feel it, the raw, "what is" quality of it. And in the simple, humble act of appreciation, your wakefulness comes back to you as an echo, a further confirmation of that awareness within you that is awake. You begin to get a sense of being at home in the vastness of the universe; of being adept - capable of facing and absorbing what is, the energy of what is, back into your Self, and then releasing it again in the form and fragrance of love, a rejoicing, loving abundance.

"...light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world."

My humanness is a work in progress. The work is a labor of love, keeping an appreciation of Freedom, from which the loving abundance, the "...light within a person of light" arises, and which in turn "...shines on the whole world" and guides the human expression of Freedom in the world, in form. As far as I can see into the darkness, what is asked of me, my humanness, is a fidelity to Freedom, to Awakening, moment to moment, forever. Without primordial trust, without moment to moment appreciation of Being I would default back into the dominion of personality, back into the trance of a separate self. Beyond relaxing into basic appreciation, I continuously look for ways to express and embody the awareness-that-is-awake that I find within/without, in both form and in the formless. Personality and all that attends it, intellect and critical thinking certainly have their places. But innocent, naked Being has the throne for Akilesh, a king without a kingdom or subjects, a king of nothingness.

I started with befriending the shadow and gradually opened my eyes to the light already, always shining. We human Beings contain the paradoxical interweaving of shadow and light. We contain that warm, aching god-emotion, an indivisible admixture of sadness and joy that brings such tender compassion. Are we not constantly blessed with warmth? With love? Are we not continuously showered with an abundance of miracles, both ordinary and extraordinary? In the words of Goethe:

All things the gods bestow, the infinite ones
On their darlings completely.
All the joys, the infinite ones
All the pains, the infinite ones, completely.

What would be the logical and rational response to such a watershed? Wouldn't it be overflowing happiness and gratitude, a joy coming from within that could be felt by others? Wouldn’t it be a "...light within a person of light," that shines on the whole world?

Someone in a neighboring town recently won the Oregon lottery to the tune of $340 million. This windfall is small compared with the treasure that lives free within that winner's heart. They hit a material jackpot against nearly impossible odds, but will they realize the greater treasure hidden in the wide-open?

When do we take the leap into the beyond? When do we act leading from our Being instead of from our ego consciousness? The kingdom of God is herenow. Move from here, from your treasure, your godliness, your love, from your innocence and authenticity. Move from this place of Wholeness. Tomorrow never comes. There is no future time when we will be more evolved or developed in order to take the leap into love, in order to be better able to love. You have all you need within you now. Love now and keep on loving openly and without reservation, calculation or strategy. Take huge risks in being kind and gentle and generous. Be free and unrestrained in your genuineness.

It is said that "Love don't pay the rent." But true love never plays so small; it doesn’t make such small claims. It gives everything and asks for nothing. But this nothing, ah this nothing, how to realize it so you can offer it to Love? Open your hand, release your fist of control, let go of hope and belief, of everything you would cling to. When you open to love, your original nature retrieves you. You don't do anything but approach the gate again and again, open and empty-handed, and let go of whatever you have been clinging to, desperately identifying with. We do not have to subscribe to the exclusive dominion of ego fixation. We can unsubscribe to ego’s email newsletter, which is old and stale anyway. And we have a good nose, our Original Nose, which tells us unfailingly whether something is old and stale or fresh. With the gift of your naked freshness, your openness and receptivity, your willingness to shed, Love receives you into its arms, and reveals those arms to be your very own. When Being meets Itself in your heart you are embraced by vastness which reveals itself to be your own original face. And that face radiates a love that can be called Divine. It radiates a Light that can be called God.

Warmly,

Aki

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

~Naomi Shihab Nye, a Palestinian poet

Poem for Aki

Escape

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
And we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality
and get into the forests again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.

Cool, unlying life will rush in,
and passion will make our bodies taught with power,
we shall stamp our feet with new power
and old things will fall down,
we shall laugh,
and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Become Naked

Gospel of Thomas; Logion 37

His disciples asked: “When will be the day that you appear to us?” “When will be the day of our vision?” Jesus replied: On the day that you are naked as newborn infants who trample their clothing, then you will see the Son of the Living One and you will have no more fear.

***

This scripture is echoed in this poem by Lacarriere:

***

Unlearning. De-conditioning your birth.
Forgetting your name. Going naked.

Sloughing away your last remains. Disrobing your memory.
Melting down your masks.

Ripping up your duties. Dismantling your certainties.
Disconnecting your doubts. Losing control of your being.

Un-baptizing your springs. Un-mapping your roads.
Shearing your desires. Gutting your passions.

Desacralizing the prophets. Discrediting the future.
Overturning the past. Discouraging Time.

Unknotting unreason. Deflowering delirium.
Defrocking the sacred. Sobering up from vertigo.

Defacing Narcissus. Delivering Gilead.
Deposing Moloch. Dethroning Leviathan.

Demystifying blood. Dissecting the monkey.
Disinheriting the ancestor.

Unburdening your soul. Unfailing your failures.
Disenchanting your despair. Unchaining your hope.

Delivering your madness. Defusing your fears.
Disencumbering your heart. Disappointing your Death.

Debasing your basis. Shredding your acquisitions.

Unlearn. Become naked.


~ Jacques Lacarriere
from Surat of Emptiness

Autumn Mandala

Blurring Separation

There is a moment in time, barely noticeable, a moment so subtle, so soft, when the edges between two things become blurred. An example might be touching an ice cube with your hand, and trying to notice that moment the ice becomes water… warmth from your finger and the frozen state of the water are changed. In this moment, each feels the other’s presence within itself, and each becomes altered, though the exact moment of the change is vague.

There is a moment I notice when a merging relaxation between myself and another occurs … a moment, barely discernable, when our edges blur, when I am changed by another’s presence. The other’s expression changes with a look of recognition, and feelings, though unspoken, are shared. The borders between us are so soft, fragile and delicate – permeable, really. In this moment there is that unmistakable feeling of non-separation.

We are affected by others; our attitudes and feelings are absorbed in them, as theirs are in us. The other is no longer the other. We are one organism, one Graceful Being. The moment of the blur is the reminder.

Perhaps our touch can be the warmth that melts the ice. Perhaps our penetrating love will opens hearts.

Veils

“We all move on the fringes of eternity and are sometimes granted vistas through the fabric of illusion.” Ansel Adams

“The veil that renders life opaque is infinitesimally thin and can be removed with the mere breath of imagination.” Thomas Moore

***

Last night I looked down, and there at my feet lay another colorful veil. This veil was made of fine material, soft, dense, richly hued, with intricate and compelling design.

I realized that I have had that veil for as long as I can remember. Memory of its origin has surely faded. Was it crafted during my childhood? Or was it my mother’s? My grandmother’s? Grandmother’s mother’s mother? Did it come all the way from the old country? Or did my father bring it from his travels? I don’t even know.

Alone in the dark of the evening I stood at my window gazing at the waning moon. Standing in this silvery illumination, feeling insignificant in the grand scheme of the cosmos, something special happened within me. It was as though through the Light love entered my room, and entered me. I felt different: empty, and spacious, warm and inviting. A subtle merging…And then, effortlessly, and gently, the old veil began to slip from my shoulders. I just let it go.

It dropped so slowly, inching down my body. I could feel its soft texture, dropping, dropping, fluttering down over my curves. In slow motion, it gathered at my feet, and I had a sensuous exhilarating feeling, standing there, naked and exposed.

Seeing the veil lying there at my feet, and feeling the warmth of love seep into me, I realize what this old veil has been shielding me from – from reality, from the truth, from light that is oh so bright. The veil constricts love to be received and offered. This veil has obscured my truer self with coarse energies of thinking, of desire, of shame, of cultural expectation. This veil has provided a resting place for me – a place where I slept rather than where I enjoyed true wakefulness.

***

The thinnest of veils cover our non-dimensional, essential self, and thus keeps true light and love partially hidden from us. We are blind to it, as an ancient master said, because of the sheer vapor of a “cloud of unknowing.” Preoccupation with the ‘real world’ continues an illusion that that the veil is necessary, that staying asleep is comfortable, that being separate from divinity is natural. The veil I have always worn blinded me, shielded me, preoccupied me, and distorted my truer nature. A way to wake up to spiritual aliveness is first to find holes in the illusory literalism of every day life. Just as Ansel Adams used a camera to see through the film that covers over the world’s lively personality, we, too, can pierce this illusion.

We can imagine slipping off our veils ... actually letting them go we expose ourselves to love, and allow love to seep in. Open and allowing, we can generously pour love out.

Pacific Reflection

The Maple's Murmuring

Joanna Macy, in her memoir, Widening Circles, writes of a favorite maple tree on her grandfather’s farm where she found solace during an uneasy childhood. This maple tree stood alone, and was tall and graceful. Joanna writes that from age 9 to 17, she climbed that tree, and when she entered the lowest, waist-thick branch and slowly pulled herself upright, she "entered a solitude that was more than my own. It was a protected solitude, like the woods near the north pasture, but different because here one single, living being was holding me. My hands still remember the feel of her; the texture of the gray bark, the way it rippled in folds near the joints, its dusting of powder. As I climbed up into her murmuring canopy, my heart quickened - from fear of falling, and from awe. Caution felt like reverence."

"The maple tree did not invite pretending games. I only went there alone. It was a place to be quiet, a place to disappear into a kind of shared presence: the being that was tree and me, with the light coming through. The light is what I remember most of all; high and wide around me, it shaped a luminous, breathing bowl. It danced through the leaves, glowing them green and gold. It stroked the limbs with flickering shadows. When I sat very quiet, the play to light seemed to go right through my body, and my own breath was part of the maple’s murmuring."

Joanna’s beautiful recollection led me to reflect on spaces and moments for finding solace, and how it is that one is able to turn to find this ease and sense of awe. Surely this is available to each of us at any moment, as close as the tree trunk and the branches that hold us. Within our own field, opening up right inside of our being, an amazing energy is available to hold us, to breathe with us, and to gently shelter us. It is as available to the nine-year-old as it is to the ninety-year-old. This shared presence is the being that is you, with light coming through. Just as Joanna did, in a moment of sitting quietly in gratitude and simply turning into this ease, your voice and the maple’s murmuring become one.

Open Doors

Autumn is surely here – beautiful turning leaves and pumpkins at the farmer’s market tell me it’s true. This week the weather has grown colder, especially at night. We have begun to light the woodstove in the evenings, and sit silently in front of it, mesmerized by the glowing flames. The orange and golden flicker, the warmth of the fire, and the gentle sound of the air swooshing around within the stove make me feel so relaxed. As I quiet myself, and peer into the flames, I become rather lost to time and circumstance. The flames become a doorway to me, as if to another dimension. What is through and beyond this door? What energy moves within the flames? What causes them to dance so beautifully?

In a moment when I am lost to distraction, when I am relaxed and open, I feel the presence of this graceful and silent energy moving through random doorways within my sphere. This presence gently holds me, comfortably cradling me with such tenderness. Like the flames this energy also lovingly carries me, beyond time and space, beyond person, place, or thing. For a moment, there is no separation between me and the flame – I am warm, glowing, dancing with gentle swooshing breezes.

There are so many open doorways such as this – where I am able to peer deeply through and extend myself beyond visual boundaries. I move through a doorway looking into the river at sunrise, through again when I peer into a child’s eyes. Looking up to a mass of red and golden leaves on the sugar maple waving gently in the wind transports me through the door. Watching the raindrops make circles in the birdbath or feeling the hand of my beloved move into mine can do the same. My kitten’s purring always lets the sounds of the universe through a door, the night sky door opens me to endless galaxies. Foggy mornings with pungent mossy woodland fragrances pull me through again and again. On high mountain trails I can see through and beyond the door into forever. Through open doors I am the sunrise, the child, the leaves, raindrops, the beloved, and the kitten’s purr. I am the night sky, and foggy morning, and the forever.

What are your open doors?

Falling in Love

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.

Attributed to Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (1907-1991)

Serenity

Empty your mind of all thoughts
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

Lao-Tzu

Pond Rings

Pond Rings for Ashley

Ashley writes beautifully about the connections and friendships we make here, in this on-line space. She notes "the unique phenomena of online communities and how there is a built in component of connection and attention that often is unknown, but holds a potent space." This has been so true for us here at Graceful Presence. We have been warmed and enlivened by the familiar faces of friends joining us here, and by those who simply open this page, and notice. Like pond rings, each ring forming connections creates an ever broadening circle of Presence through our lives.

Ashley shares our experience when she writes, "A wave of electric delight or effervescent bubbles rising and making a fizz, has the opportunity to run through our systems when connection, community, and care are acknowledged and we feel the essential embrace of intimacy, belonging, and acceptance."

Thank you Ashley.

With gratitude and embrace to all friends here, seen and unseen.

Original Self

I woke early today, while it was still dark outside. Peering out the window, I noticed the sky was still full of stars. When I walked outside, an owl greeted me with a full and resonant hooting sound coming from a nearby forest. This quiet nightscape was actually full of sound, of fresh and damp morning air, of an endless starry sky that seemed to wrap me into itself – I was at once enfolded but not able to feel the boundaries. This is divine love. This enfolding happens simply because we are, not because of our personalities, our deeds, or our intentions. It just happens because we are.

In this moment of pure holding, in a moment that seems all too brief, I recognize the person in me that came into this world full of possibility and destined for joyful unveiling and manifestation. This person within is sheltered and usually hidden beneath the thick layers of indoctrination of who I usually see myself to be, beneath convention and programming, beneath the all shoulds and oughts, and all the plans that were made for me by my family and culture. In this moment I feel the pure lightness of this self, the unbounded freedom inherent in my entity. I recognize my original face.

This – my original self – how to describe her? Well, she is open, naked, unhindered. She is inquisitive, receptive, and responsive. Though unaware of self, she views her intimate world to be emanating from her very self. She is not separate from others; indeed everything she sees seems to be an inexplicable extension of herself. She searches for eyes, for glimmers of knowing recognition in others. And when she feels this recognition her whole body responds with joyful exuberance. She reacts with amazement at the simplest of miracles. She does not know what love is because she is love.

In the immediacy of this moment, this fresh moment standing enveloped in darkness, I am alert and conscious, engaged in the immensity of the universe. The reality of my smallness is unveiled just as the early light illuminates the low fog rising in the nearby field. Little me - I am so small, a speck on the planet, infinitesimal yet not insignificant. I remember who I am.

Unfolding

Last Rose

Fractals are made by downloading a program called Apophysis, (and the tutorial) and then by manipulating the random mutations the program produces. It's mathmatical magic, which you don't really have to understand to make quite stunning fractals.

The thing that amazes me is that no two will be alike, since they are moving, spiraling, spinning, and caught in time so to speak. Each moment is a fresh moment for a fractal.

First Fractal

First Fractal

A new friend, Stacey, helped me learn to make Fractals.
Oh my! So much fun!
Thank you Stacey!

Musings on Spaciousness

There are many kinds of spaciousness – there is spaciousness of physical form, of time, of presence, and I have discovered, of love.

Form: I recently moved into a different house, and took this opportunity to purge a lot of unnecessary possessions that have collected over time. It is so freeing to feel the spaciousness of physical form –uncluttered walls and airy rooms with few furnishings, and even drawers and closets that have extra room in them. Also, the view from the windows looks out to a vast country landscape of fields, distant hills, and deep forests – a delightful spaciousness to explore.

Time: A couple of years ago, my only child left for college, and my extra activities related to her busy schedule came to a sudden slowdown. Since I work full-time, finding extra hours when I was free from tasks, schedules, and events was a luxury. Though I missed my daughter’s daily physical presence in my life, this change brought about a new and welcomed spaciousness of time.

Presence: In quiet moments of solitude, I have been turning to the spaciousness of the present moment. I have been allowing this feeling of spaciousness within me expand, just to see how far it can go, and observing what the experience of it is for me. The intensity of this experience is subtle. In the simplicity of observing the present moment, noting what thoughts come and go, hearing the flies buzzing by and the soft clucking of the chickens, feeling the warm breezes on my skin, and observing my own breath… there is a prevailing fresh quality of resting in Presence. I still don’t know the answer to that question or how far this can go yet, because there is no end to the in-the-moment experience of this. In other words, each moment of feeling spaciousness is a new moment - I feel it expansively and freshly. The experience of this for me is of open possibility, and a quiet peaceful serenity. Though occasionally disturbing thoughts surface in the present moment of observing, I am becoming practiced in just allowing these troubling thoughts dissolve. When I realize turmoil, and then become less absorbed within it, I feel a humbling compassion toward myself. This is fertile ground for love.

Of late, when lingering in a sort of pause mode, I have begun to be more aware of this interior spaciousness – of an emptiness within me. This emptiness is not incompleteness, no – not at all. This emptiness implies possibility, a place of receptivity, of room for something huge. In this space there is no finiteness of capacity, no walls to confine, no social constraints to limit. This kind of space is freedom, freedom from confinement, from preoccupation, from oppression, from drivenness, and from all the other interior and exterior forces that tend to bind and restrict my spirit. This space gives me elbowroom for my passions. The passion I notice most is love. I am reminded of this: “Make your home in me as I make mine in you.” (John 15:4) To the extent that I find this grace filled space within me, I keep discovering an expanding emptiness in which love makes its home.

Spaciousness is always a beginning, a possibility, a potential, and a capacity for new awareness. If I can bear the truth of how things are, and actively seek the truth, not just what is comfortable, I eventually find myself in the midst of a peaceful Presence.

A friend suggested that to the extent we make our own spaciousness holy, and intend it for love, pointing it toward loves source, this space responds. In my experience, our increasing availability to the truth, to love, happens gradually, gently, and with grace. It happens in keeping with our unique personalities – and (smile) I seem to have a penchant for love. My heart opens widely in response. We seem to be given what we need as we need it – this space opens before us at precise increments. Space becomes brutal when we try to force it, make it a project, or demand that it meets our expectations.

It is a blessing that love is relentless. Love waits for us to make space for it in our lives. When I step out, risk myself in love, let this love exude from my wholeness, I find an ever deepening capacity within me for this spaciousness of love.

Held in Light

With sincere sympathy, I open my heart to those affected by the hurricane. It seems a small thing, but I hold You gently in the Light.

My Friend, Darrell, shared this touching poem:

Return To The Most Human...
Unison Benediction
a poem by May Sarton

Return to the most human,
nothing less will nourish the torn spirit,
the bewildered heart,
the angry mind:
and from the ultimate duress,
pierced with the breath of anguish,
speak of love.

Return, return to the deep sources,
nothing less will teach the stiff hands a new way to serve,
to carve into our lives the forms of tenderness
and still that ancient necessary pain preserve.

Return to the most human,
nothing less will teach the angry spirit,
the bewildered heart,
the torn mind,
to accept the whole of its duress,
and pierced with anguish...
at last, act for love.

~ May Sarton ~

What Breathes Us?

When you touch your bliss, it rings, confirming with the showering of further delight. A song emerges from the core of your being when you touch this sacred space. Unlike any other joy, it is fulfilling and rewarding in an unconditional way. It does not depend on any condition or circumstance to be in place. There is no prerequisite in order for this bliss to shine. It shines just as the stars shine in the blue sky at midday. One who sees with pure eyes can see this light shining at all times, even on a dark, cloudy night. Other forms of happiness are dependent upon various conditions and circumstances, but this bliss is self-existing.

One with pure eyes observes an ordinary ecstasy happening throughout nature at every moment. Pause for a moment and observe this orgasmic celebration. The trees and flowers are singing, the rivers and clouds are dancing, the sun, moon, planets and stars are playing their hearts out, holding nothing back. Why does humankind seem to be so unhappy? TV and news seems to document the same negativity manifest on a smaller scale in our workspace and social encounters. Even celebrations, vacations, and leisure activities seem to be pushed. How rare to find a person standing astounded at the miracle of life flowing in a small insect, a cedar tree, a babbling brook, a solar system, a galaxy. The human hand is a miracle of astounding proportion, and animated by an intelligence of staggering vastness. The play of light upon the human eye is a mystery unfathomable by science. Does science understand the being of fruit fly? It can break down all the components, but it can never infuse this organism with aliveness. It will never figure out that aliveness factor.

We breathe. What breathes us? Rocks breathe, the seabed breathes, oranges and light and cars breathe; the dark night breathes in and out, cosmic dust breathes, even empty space is breathing. All these things are alive and breathing, however subtle. They are expressing energy in some form. I am calling this expression breathing. You can feel this breathing in everything because what you are is this breathing aliveness. And you can feel the ecstasy in this breathing. Life and death are one variation of the in breath and out breath. The ecstasy, the bliss of existence is big, bigger than our small-minded notions of right and wrong, good and bad. These notions are limited by a perspective born out of fixation upon a self-identity. Releasing identification with this self opens up the vast perspective of God, of empty seeing from no reference point whatsoever - a happening that the rational mind simply can not wrap itself around.

The bliss of the whole includes everything in its celebration. Everything. It does not leave out what the mind would consider unacceptable. This celebration is beyond good and bad, right and wrong, happy or sad. This celebration is happening at all times and everywhere and can be realized in a miraculous /ordinary way at any moment. Look and see this celebration happening within and without before thought. Before you have any thought, this celebration is happening. It is utterly independent of thought, rational thought. One can see the actuality of this instantly, or use a variety of meditation techniques to reveal it. This celebration is not trying to remain hidden, miserly hiding the Truth from us. On the contrary it is vividly dancing naked, exposed in the wide open.

This can be approached from another direction, through appreciation – big appreciation or basic appreciation or primordial appreciation. Existence appreciates itself in form. You could say existence loves all of its forms or manifestations. Is it not so that your being in all its vastness, is deeply in love with itself? Are you not in love with all these manifestations of the whole? Is it not the mind that separates and divides that which is inherently whole? God looks upon her creation and sees that it is good. God looks upon all these forms, the 10,000 things and sees that they manifestations of one Being; that they are none other than the one-body, and what God feels is love. Is this not so?

It is as if existence appreciates experiencing itself in a myriad of ways, in billions of ways. It experiences itself in a child dancing around a tree and the collapse of a star in a distant galaxy. It experiences itself in infinite permutations, in infinite worlds in this herenow. It is simultaneously experiencing and appreciating itself with out any experiencer. This appreciation is vast, primordial, and before thought. When the hawk’s talons sink into the dove, there is the primordial ecstasy, the appreciation. When the child emerges from the womb, life emerging out of nothingness, there is deep appreciation, and when the child returns to nothingness after being struck by a car on the highway, before and within the human heartbreak, there is blissful appreciation. When the athlete vaults to his personal record, and when the elderly man falls breaking a brittle hip, there is immeasurable appreciation in and from the isness of existence. Our minds rebel against or applaud these things according to our social conditioning and biological programming, but this does not change the fact that existence loves its creation, manifestation, and expression in all its various aspects. While our human heart breaks at loss, suffering and death, and rejoices at gain, pleasure and birth, existence, God or pure consciousness appreciates all, spontaneously extends love to all processes, to both the healthy newborn and the terminally ill three year old on the oncology ward.

Not just for what we agree with does existence celebrate and appreciate, but for all things and processes - an abundant crop feeding thousands and a typhoon killing thousands. You may have read lines in scripture and sacred texts or in the poems of the mystics, that referred to allowing things to be as they are or to let things be, let it be, leave be, allow, allow it to remain as it is, love it as it is, or accepting “what is” instead of what you think it should look like or how it should be according to your pictures. In this you can see the arrogance of little me: God allows yet the I thinks it must be otherwise; existence accepts and does not interfere with its beloved creation yet the ego wants to change things, to improve upon existence, to make things better according to its agenda.

The whole is loving, open and allowing. It allows, and even allows the ego to make its efforts to improve upon creation. Again, nothing wrong with ego. It makes things more comfortable and secure for human life, its survival and health. It is just that through conditioning we have it in the place of master (we identify with and think we are this ego-structure as if it were a solid, separate self existing entity, which it is not, it is a useful, mechanistic process), instead of in its proper place as servant. Thinking we are this ego-identity, we miss our original face, who we are in the totality of our Being. When we realize our original nature, we see that we can still make our children safe, we can perform research to discover cures to cancer, we can provide relief for typhoon victims, and use the tools of science to cultivate the land and feed ourselves; we can promote health, comfort, security, safety, happiness, entertainment, recreation, whatever, but we move from awakeness, graceful presence, from our godliness, our realization of wholeness, and the wisdom and love of non-reference point. It seems like a small shift but this transformation makes all the difference in the world. You are awake and being awake your are filled with love for Self as it appears in all of its various forms. You can see how this alters everything. Imagine the Arab-Israeli peace process conducted by participants who are awake. Even if they were not very intelligent or intellectual or knowledgeable in the ways of international diplomacy, they would move from the wisdom of non-reference point; wisdom that realizes there is fundamentally no other; that Arab and Jew are just labels, just identities, names for the sacred nameless. They wouldn’t just think this, they would live it; they would live their godliness, realizing the God-Being they are, and seeing it as identical with the God-Being the fellow across the table is.

Talk is cheap. Spiritual terms like Namasté just roll off the tongue or onto the paper, but to embody such a term, to live it and express through our humanity is quite another thing. Adyashanti speaks of a fidelity to Truth. We can never just hover, never just flop and not put forth some effort to express our realization through our humanness, our body, mind and emotions. The day never comes when we can go on autopilot and leave everything to the god within. Quoting a Sufi, Osho said God needs our hands to tether our camel. This human life is a precious opportunity for awakening. Once we taste this awakening and it deepens in us, stabilizes in our humanness, then we take up the mantle of responsibility to express it, to embody it in our day-to-day living as human beings. We discover our freedom and then embody it and express it in everything we do and say. This is celebration. We can relax into this responsibility because it is blissful. May not be pleasurable, comfortable or pleasant all the time, but it will carry that deep, subtle bliss of wakefulness. For some, this is the heart’s deepest desire to embody wakefulness and express it daily in their humanness.

Post by Akilesh

Fears

One of the challenges of the spiritual journey seems to be that of facing fears, of looking squarely into the unknown. Sitting in the safe pew of the grandfather, and superficially accepting religion without questioning leaves an inquiring mind and heart spiritually hungry. Yet to venture out to the area of the unknown, into deeper waters is like taking that first ride on two thin wheels of the bicycle – it makes us tremble a bit. But really - where is there to fall? Would the waves of the spiritual sea truly overtake us? Could we actually make a mistake here from which there would be no return? What fears dominate or censor our exploration, and cause us to desperately cling to an imagined safe and secure life ring?

I'm reminded of an experience of flying in a very small plane, and feeling very uneasy in the turbulence and rattling noise of the small engine. Fear kept coming over me, while I gripped, white knuckled, to the seat in front of me. And then, in a lucid moment laced with fatalistic humor, I realized that clinging to anything on that plane would be futile in a real emergency. There was nothing solid to hold on to. Finally, I just let my grip go, and relaxed back into the seat, and for the first time, noticed the amazing view. Aptly, it was the Grand Canyon!

Experience tells me that we are all gifted with a natural ability to swim in these spiritual waters, to let go into the majesty, and breathe deeply the same wondrous divinity that inspired Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, and so many others.

Step out

Every night, just before going to bed, I have a little routine of quietly stepping outside into the darkness. I wonder if you do this, too. There is something so magical in the night – there are particular sounds and fragrances and shadows on the ground. The fullness of the night sky is so amazing, as it goes on and on into other worlds. The nighttime beckons us to let go, let it be. My heart overflows with the presence I feel. Just as I begin the day with the light of the sunrise, it is so complete to end the day honoring the darkness. In this quiet moment, I feel so much gratitude, so much trust, and so much love.

So step out tonight, and I will meet you there.

Reminders

You are on my mind tonight. I feel the sensation of presence ubiquitously. Maybe it is because the evening sun was glittering on the river this late afternoon. Maybe because the fragrance of autumn fills the night air. Maybe it is the powerful fullness of the moon. Actually there are these sort of tickling reminders everywhere... but the most potent reminder was found in the timid eyes of strangers looking up and making contact; intimate, brief, interior glances, each one a homecoming to the immediacy of Presence.

Why do we forget who we are? Why do we need reminders along the way?

The Face of the Friend

This morning, as has been true so many mornings, I watched the sun come up over the eastern skyline. The sun makes this remarkable yet ordinary journey each day, with exquisite penetrating energy. In the early dawn I let this light seep into me as I stand there in quiet reflection. This single moment in this herenow is all that matters – and it is a truly perfect moment. Where does this perfection come from? From where does this warmth radiate? My whole insides smile as I drop gently and effortlessly into the question, and become the answer.

Every evening this week just as we are finishing our dinner on the porch, we have noticed a doe amble by on a path she had made near our fence line. Following are her twin fawns, so endearing with their prancing steps and delicate young markings. The rhythm of their routine is comforting yet fresh; we never tire of noticing her near the field. As we observe her, the doe, alert and ever watchful, undoubtedly notices us. We are part of her routine, too. I love the circularity of this – the shared routine, the shared noticing. We are gathered in this cycle; there is so much perfection in this occurrence, so much blissful appreciation. Akilesh wrote, “Existence loves its creation, manifestation, and expression in all its various aspects.” How can it not? It is all so lovely – and I am struck over and over again with deep gratitude. Akilesh continued, “You are awake and being awake you are are filled with love for Self as it appears in all of its various forms.” Yes.

All outer things are reminders of Being itself; wherever you look is the face of the Friend. Eventually this process always becomes circular – Presence welling up inside us and moving outward, the outer world being consciously recognized and returned back to its source through our awareness. We live for spirit and spirit sustains us. And in that circle, encircled by our presence, is love. So very pure. Amazing love. Truly magical.

Lost

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
and you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner, Who Shall Be The Sun?
Indiana University Press 1978

Divine Web

Dusk. The days go by like this. Filled with the wonder of changing light. Darkness falls, there is a moon or not, a sliver or full. Dawn comes – the nubs on the bare branches nose their way into fists and then the leaf fingers open. Shade spreads like a slow liquid across the terrace, each week a little wider, as light softened by emerging leaves as it strengthens with the gathering of spring toward summer. The steady flow of days does not divide itself except by light. And in adhering to its course, cleaving to its current, some old fracture in me heals up like a bone given rest. Some old split between desire and action, between idea and emotion, between spark and dream, between ardor and immediacy – between body and soul, dissolves. Out of time I am carried into wind and weather, into the drift of unbroken enduring affection among all things, a communion in which body is no longer an object I inhabit, but a vehicle of presence that sustains the experience of all other bodies in their joining – tree to earth to sky to bird to seed to shadow in an endless continuity. Then I know why I am here. Then I behold the great belonging in which all things are made one. All things are at home in themselves within the whole. Body and soul are then a singular participation in the divine web of Spirit made flesh.


Elizabeth Carothers Herron
Parabola
Fall, 2005

Spreading Your Wings

My spiritual friend said the following is what the ocean says to the river when the river falls into the ocean. It is from a story by Chuang Tzu where the Spirit of the Ocean is speaking to the Spirit of the River:

"You cannot speak of the ocean to a well frog, the creature of a narrower sphere. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, the creature of a season. You cannot speak of Tao to a pedagogue, his scope is too limited. But now that you have emerged from your narrow sphere and seen the great ocean, you know your own insignificance and I can speak to you of great principles."

Post by Akilesh

The Silent Sky

We meet in the open sky
of not-two, not-one;
in this stillness,
unknowing.

Dissolving the web of identification,
thoughts and feelings no longer
bind us.

You are like a jewel
in an infinite, interconnected net of jewels,
each reflecting the Whole.

With a warmth, a mystery of love
that shines in the eternal now,
you recognize my original face -
"There is nothing at all there" -
in your own.

In humility and respect you refrain
from desecrating the purity of this shrine
with description.

You utter words of magic,
the inconceivable,
uncontainable "Open, Open,"
and leap naked
into nothingness.

This no-thing-ness
is without any trace of openness.
only just this,
the silent sky.


Akilesh

Gift

You've no idea how hard I've looked
for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.
What's the point of bringing gold
to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean.
Everything I came up with
was like taking spices to the Orient.
It's no good giving my heart and my soul
because you already have these.
So- I've brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me.

- Jalaluddin Rumi

True Love

When you realize your own inherent freedom, you realize there is no other. This is Being meeting Itself. Love is present in this meeting. People want to find true love. First realize your freedom, where there is no other and Being is meeting Itself, eternally in communion with itself, appreciating itself in all its diverse forms. True love blossoms with this realization. When this love emerges in the world, it makes every effort to encourage freedom, to encourage you to realize your original nature.

Post by Akilesh

Musings from the porch

Yesterday, the day began so warm, the heat already palpable. The bright sun illuminated the dust on my dresser and the silvery filaments of spider webs, spiraling midair, mirroring qualities of my inner housekeeping. Now, it’s deep into the night, the air is fresh and cool, and above there are a million stars. The moon is a few days from being full. I love summer nights. My heart feels the immediacy of mystery on these bright summer nights; sitting quietly on my porch I offer hospitality to the unknowing. Dust and webs aside, graciously I invite, “Forgive the mess, and linger awhile.”

Existence has its own way, smiling at innocents who think they have control. In this moment, the only moment, I have no control. I don’t need any. In an inner dialogue, I whisper, “I have you Beloved, truly all I need.” My trust in this runs deep. The next breath will come, and so will the one after that. The one that does not come will leave me in total peace with silence.

The sky expands. In darkness I see there are more than a million stars – there are millions upon millions. Sitting here, I am so small – a tiny particle of dust in the grandeur of the universe. I am a silvery, shimmering, smiling, crying particle of dust, reflecting a miniscule facet of glory – absolutely right in size and shape for the reason I exist.

What is this experience of “I,” of this person I call myself, Meredith? This has been a source of wonder from the earliest recognition of self awareness in childhood. Perhaps it is the greatest variable in my nature. The character and quality of “I” is sometimes a feeling of alienation, at other times of communion with life. I move on a continuum of self-deprecation to profound self worth. At times this feeling of “I” has been a prison bounded in captivity by habitual thoughts and feelings – circling, tapes that wind, rewind and run again. At other times, emancipated, this “I” is my own hidden treasure. This “I” is an eye, through which God sees.

In the deepest shadows of night, when there was no moon, no stars, and the unfriendly air was chilly and everything was dirty and disgusting – in that dark night was there a god to see? For a time I doubted…and then the cleaning began. Some unseen hand within began the polishing in the seat of my soul. As Rumi says,

An unsuspecting child first wipes the tablet
and then writes the letters on it.
God turns the heart into blood and desperate tears;
then writes the spiritual mysteries on it.

Internal resources seek light. After the tears, I seemed to find resolve to move and flutter, scratch and tear a hole in the papery screen covering this darkest room. Reality teaches by means of opposites and contrasts, wrath and mercy. With wet wings and compassion I saw the sun rise for the first time. The imperfection of the world is what gives birth to the sunrise, to the reality of love – an unconditional love that loves even this imperfection.

Imperfectly and hesitantly I have been riding into the unknown. Traversing has been tumultuous – like riding an unruly horse I have hung on, grasping at a wispy mane with my fists and a moving torso with the length of my legs, clinging to an uncertain security. Getting bucked off is sudden, painful, humiliating to my ego. This falling has happened over and over again; learning to ride the undulations of existence is at times painful and frightening. Trembling is a part of being human. Rumi says,

Look at yourself, trembling
afraid of non-existence:
know that non-existence is also afraid
that God might bring it into existence.
If you grasp at worldly dignities,
it’s from fear, too.
Everything, except love of the Most Beautiful,
is really agony. Its agony
to move towards death and not drink the water of life.

One day I know I will let go – let go of fear, of trembling, of resistance. Perhaps that day is soon. Though the horse is appealing – strong, beautiful, compelling, the horse is an illusion. Finally it will dissolve as fantasies do. I feel and note the particles, like dust on my dresser, fragments of the illusion falling away, resting, glistening in the new day's morning sun, smiling at me. I feel the intimacy of love, unconditioned immanent love, warming me in this light. This love, without control, without fear, without knowing, wraps me softly in her very own light.

Memory

One summer I was on a wilderness backpack trip in Eastern Oregon with a companion. It was incredibly beautiful county, though I didn't really take it all in because the hiking alone took my most of my focus. We were two days into a five day trip when, midmorning, on a steep and endless craggy slope, my energy just ran out. The weather was hot, and the trail was grueling . I didn't have the stamina to go any further. My friend was so strong; with boundless energy he was seemingly unaffected by the altitude or temperature. He urged me to keep going, he poked and prodded me, made fun of me, offered to take part of my load, and finally went on ahead because he was tired of me and tired of being slowed by my pace.

I couldn't believe he would abandoned me like that - I was suddenly and overwhelmingly afraid. Alone, and free of being observed, I dropped by the side of the trail, held my head in my hands, and wept. I cried because I was worn out. I cried because I was humiliated; I felt weak and ignoble. I cried from fear. I cried because I was furious, with raging anger at my friend and hating myself. In the end, I didn't even know why I was crying anymore. I felt pathetic, pitiful, dirty and disgusting, sitting there by myself, crying my eyes out.

Finally the tears subsided, there were no more left to cry. Exhausted, spent in every way, I finally felt myself relax. Time stood still. Eventually, something within me urged me to get up and get going again. I took a drink of water, had a bite of a power bar, retied my boots, and put on my heavy pack.

Alone on the trail now, my pace was my own, I was not being pushed or pulled by another. The lack of a companion was freeing in a way. I hiked many miles in isolation that day, pushing myself at times, and resting when I needed to. I started singing, remembering old songs, and making up new ones. In this solitude, I needed to prove nothing; my ego was unnecessary. All the angry energy, the humiliation, the fear and exhaustion just dissolved.

Slowly, from a spacious reserve within me, I found the strength and motivation I needed. I began to know and trust myself in a new way, though my focus on self diminished. I became very quiet, my interior chatter stilling. In this quietude, the only sound on the trail was from my own footsteps. Soon, even that dissolved, and all I could hear was silence – the great awesome silence of the wilderness. Like daybreak, an awareness of the surrounding beauty gradually expanded, filling me with a sense of utter peace unlike any I had ever known.

Light Rising

Silent, iridescent gold
Light rising in the east.
Silent, silvery mist
Light rising in the hills.
Silent, verdant, feathery greens
Light rising from new growth
in the trees.

My Beloved joins me at the window this dawn
Silent, together we view this splendor
Our vision radiates further than ever before
Outward and inward spirals
Light rising in our hearts.

We are not-two, my Beloved and I
Both viewer and view, not two
Silent light from the sun, from the hills
from the trees, from our hearts -
Not separate light, but one.

One silent lovelight, rising.

The Sacrament of the Present Moment

For centuries, people seeking greater realization of love have first sought immediate, wakeful presence as the practical foundation of their purpose. Standing awake in the here and now, consecrating their desire in the sacrament of the present moment, they have claimed their yearning for love.

Awakening from his dream, Jacob said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.” “Take no thought of the morrow,” said Jesus, “Stay awake, praying constantly.” Jesus said this in the context of seeking God first, before all other concerns.

St. Augustine: “Too late I have loved Thee, O thou Beauty of ancient days, yet never knew! Too late I loved Thee! And behold, You were within, and I apart.”

Brother Lawrence: “…we need only to know God intimately present in us, to address ourselves to God at every moment.” We seek the present moment in order to “practice the presence of God.”

Jean-Pierre de Caussade: “...the sacrament of the present moment.” This sacrament manifests God’s will: “an immense ocean which the heart only fathoms In so far as it overflows with faith, trust, and love.” “There are no moments which are not filled with God’s infinite holiness so that there are none we should not honor.”

Thomas Kelly: “…the eternal now.” “Continually renewed immediacy, not receding memory of the Divine Touch, lies at the base of religious living.” Kelly said that this is the avenue toward world justice: “Social concern is the dynamic Life of God at work in the world, made special and emphatic and unique, particularized in each individual and group who is sensitive and tender in the leading-strings of love.”

Thich Nhat Hanh: “…the miracle of mindfulness.” “…present moment wonderful moment.” This mindfulness of the present moment is in the service of “being peace.”

***
When I read these great quotes, and I feel for immediate awareness in the "present wonderful moment", it feels like a homecoming. This present moment is pure and perfect, right here, right now, with you.

Questions

What draws me?

Who calls me?

What is my deepest desire?

What/Who is stirring my spirit and making me feel most alive?

***
Listen for your heart to respond. Seeking authentic desire in the heart is not like trying to grasp and examine some objective thing. Feel instead for a gentle immersion of yourself in your very real, immediate being.

Thomas Merton said, "Love is not a problem, not an answer to a question. Love knows no question. It is the ground of all, and questions arise only insofar as we are divided, absent, estranged, alienated from that ground."

Opportunity

Saturday, 4:30 a.m.
Neighbor's rooster crows
An opportunity to awaken!

Deeper Communion

Here and there does not matter.
We must be still and still moving
into another intensity
for a further union,
a deeper communion.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Spiritual Freedom

Over the course of what seems a brief life on this blessed earth we experience moments of freedom, moments of genuine bliss. Not conditioned or conditional, these moments do not seem to be caused by anything in particular. They do not seem dependent on or requiring any particular condition or circumstance. They seemed to come out of the blue. I love that expression "out of the blue." Out of blue sky, out of the vast beyond, the great wide open. When we were children we had many such moments. Serendipitous moments of pure joy, a joy that came from within. Perhaps running on a grassy hill in the morning sunlight, hearing the song of birds; feeling a cold wind on our face or freezing air in our nostrils; seeing those tiny golden flecks glittering in the sand at river's edge, reflecting the gold of the sun; the soft moving branches of a willow in a summer's breeze; the tone of a lover's voice -- so many things, endless sources of nature's overflowing bliss, all around us, all the time. These moments are available if we just tune our eyes to see and our ears to hear. These serendipitous moments of freedom reflect a vast freedom that abides in the background rather than a situation where we have brief snatches of freedom inside an overall life of imprisonment. As we grow older much of our natural openness gets covered over with preoccupations of all kinds, and we lose touch with our freedom. Freedom is our birthright. Freedom is synonymous with authentic presence. They are one and the same. The mind divides. The totality of your being is undivided, whole. It is freedom to realize this wholeness. Freedom in this sense is not a noun. It is in energetic verb, more like freedomness or freedoming.

About love, divine love, whole love: Freedom, in a way, is higher than love. Love gives way to freedom. Love realizes the ascendancy of freedom. Love realizes the peak that freedom is. When you realize your original face, that authentic presence that flows from the vastness of your inner space in one continuous stream to the vastness of your outer space; when you realize the wholeness and aloneness of this space; when you realize the sheer bliss of this undivided consciousness -- you realize freedom. You realize you are already free. You realize that freedom is inherent in your very being. Without fixation on ego, without identification with a separate self, without the projection of time, without past or future, what are you? Realizing this luminous emptiness of your original face, you realize you are free; you realize you cannot be confined by anything. You are freedom itself, your consciousness is inherently free and unbounded.

Or we can look at it from the other direction. What is it that binds you, imprisons you, restricts, restrains, limits, confines and defines? You are gradually becoming very, very clear about what imprisons you; that which creates your prison walls; that which keeps you from your treasure house within, keeps you from your heart's deepest desire, keeps you separate, alienated, suffering. Ego fixation, with its want and fear, its preoccupation with thinking, the mind identified self with its allegiance to time, takes you out of the now, has you live an inauthentic, neurotic, stale life of suffering. Our deep allegiance to this ego structure keeps us from the freedom of our original nature. We know it is possible to return to the freshness and freedom of our true nature. Slowly, slowly we draw distinctions which help us differentiate the real from the unreal.

Freedom is synonymous with realization. Since we are already free, when we realize our true nature, we realize complete freedom. This is why meditative awareness is so crucial; why a combination of meditative awareness and loving kindness is so important. It contributes to the realization of the freedom at the foundation of our being. With my questions I have tried to point you toward that freedom within. I have tried to support and point out that which leads to increasing freedom and bliss. So much of our enculturation and consensus reality leads us in the exact opposite direction. That's why I call myself a madman. I'm on a trajectory 180° from the direction the overall culture is moving in, subscribing to and glorifying. Looking close at conventional thinking, stepping outside one's cultural and psychosocial conditioning, "normal" appears insane. The end result is simply death. The path of returning, the path of realization, is a lonely path, a path of simplicity, of reducing extraneous, frivolous baggage, a path of letting go, of not holding on, a path of willing relinquishment of all the accumulated baggage of a lifetime, a path of challenge and courage and freedom. Going against the grain of our conditioning and enculturation can have one appear misguided at best, insane at worst. But to taste the freedom within, the undeniable primordial goodness and basic wholesomeness of naked, authentic being, is its own beacon and bellwether. It this way you are less susceptible to charlatans, less willing to be led by the blind. Instead you use your own inner source as your guide. Everyone has a lamp within that can guide them home. Everything should be tested against the truth of this inner lamp. If a teaching, or scripture comes your way, it should be brought into the light of this inner lamp, and tested, scrutinized. This is especially important as you extend your spiritual friendship to others. Have them ask themselves, "Does it fit, is this useful on my path?" This is where John Tarrant says that he can have nothing to say about your path other than to share what's worked for him and to love and encourage you wherever you are on your path. We can share what we've found. We can do this freely, unselfconsciously. We can allow others to be responsible for checking it out, seeing if it fits, if it resonates with them, if it's useful to them. If not, no harm done, they can just discard it. Just like we do, they can test it against their own lamp, against their own light and see if it has any worth to them. Each person is unique and will come to their own unique conclusions. They may or may not be similar to the conclusions you or I have come to. Whatever we share, it is our own, it is particular to the unique expression of one's own being. Each will come to his or her own conclusions, through the living of their lives, the walking of their path.

Post by Akilesh

Be Audacious

You cannot live a sheltered life forever without ever being exposed, and at the same time be a spiritual adventurer. Be audacious. Be crazy in your own way with that madness in the eyes of a man that is the wisdom in the eyes of God. Take risks, search, and search again. Search everywhere, in every way, and do not let a single opportunity or chance to let life pass you by...

Arnaud Desjardins

Into Waiting Arms

Each time we awaken
it is into the arms of unknowing.
Not once and for all,
(according to the program)
but serendipitously...

Always present, abiding patience,
it holds us up.
Deeply awake or fast asleep,
unknowing love allows,
and respects, both.

Never coming or going --
the vibrant stillness,
a silence so musical --
it dances and sings
in our communion.

Impersonal and detached, yet so
indescribably intimate.
Closer, so much closer
than birth and death,
than breath.

The coolness and indifference
of the stars,
but how warm they are
(within us glittering)
in a broken, silent heart.

Akilesh

Open Sky

Is the open sky a metaphor for your stillness?

Thoughts come and go
feelings rise and pass away
you are like a shrine
with no walls, no floor, nor roof.
There is nothing at all there.
Even peace and silence do not describe it.
Open.
Open.

Bismillah

Bismillah is an Arabic word which Neil Douglas Klotz translates poetically:

We begin by remembering
The sound and feeling of the One Being,
The wellspring of love.
We affirm that the next thing we experience
Shimmers with the light of the whole universe.

According to NDK, "Our individuality is a unique gift. The origin of this gift lies within the heart of the equally unique, divine “I Am” that fills the whole cosmos. Every blade of grass says, “I am!” as it expresses its selfhood. We can affirm that we can become fully integrated, fully human beings, deeply in contact with other people, with nature, and with the ultimate Source. It is another way of saying “bismilah!”"

Poetry

you are poetry

your love amazes
swirls within
drenches
awakens
enlivens
reflects
warms
opens
frees
& fills
me

Oh my, this love is such a beautiful thing!

A Dream

We were in a room, sitting together,
light streaming in from unshaded windows.
Sitting on the floor, in silence, you and I.
No need to speak, listening instead
to the deep rhythms of the heart.

A long time passes, no time passes.
I quietly said to you, "I'm enjoying being here with you now."
And you said to me, "And I'm enjoying being here with you."

Silence. Time/no time passes.
I said to you, "I see the Light of Christ within you."
And you said to me, "And I see the light of Christ within you."

Silence, again.
And then the blessing came to me,
from some distant/near place within the heart.
"Where ever you go, and where ever I go,
holy ground shall span the distance between us..."

Love, Truth, & Authority

Meredith: Today, I learned this: “Consecration is a dedication to divinity. It means consciously participating in love, intentionally opening ourselves to accept the divinely given gift. Obviously, it means that we must trust more in grace than in our personal capabilities. To say yes to love, we must trust enough or risk enough to be willing to enter love.”

Possibly what I have wanted most out of life is love. Oddly, though we are immersed in love, it swirls about us largely unrecognized and unclaimed. Love comes into the open as a gift. I sense this gift of love at different depths. To receive love at the deepest depth, takes a willingness to drop self-protection, to be a bit vulnerable, to move beyond social constraints and to be actively and radically open to receive this gift. Love bestowed in this way is grace, loving as God loves.

I laugh with Kabir, who laughs about fish being thirsty. We are in love, within love, as fish are in the sea and clouds are in the sky. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and perfuses us. In a very real sense, we are made of love. It is our true treasure, right here within us, waiting to be claimed.

We have claimed and consecrated love. It is beautiful, it is freeing. Love is who and what we truly are. I hope you can feel this gift living, swirling, and rising from the very depths of your being as I do.

Akilesh: We can take old, dead words -- words that have been poisoned by religion and pseudo spirituality -- and breathed new life into them, resurrect them, infuse them with their original aliveness, and re-create fresh meaning. We do this by going to the authentic wellspring of our heart and in the light of authentic presence the old word is freshly illuminated. Take the word "love" for example. Such a misused word, yet we have exploded the word from within, pulled out from it the deeply buried authenticity, the freshness and living truth of it. The word itself falls far, far short of the living experience.

So, a new word -- authority. You are your own authority. As ego fixation recedes, one realizes one’s own authority. Your heart, the totality of your being, your higher self, pure consciousness is your only authority. There is no external authority, whether for character or morality or principal or truth or God. You are your own authority. This will serve you later when times get rough, when the road gets long, and the sky grows dark. During times of extreme difficulty we are tempted to rely on others for spiritual authority. But this authority is and belongs with you. We rely on others for spiritual friendship and help, but do not go that extra step where you concede your authority (and responsibility) to another. Sometimes conditions and circumstances become extremely compelling and we run for the cover of social convention, consensus reality. We have to walk our own path, realize our own responsibility and our own authority -- and claim it. No one can give it to us. Trouble is we feel so impoverished as an ego we try to find someone or something to support, prop up, rehabilitate, enhance, empower our small self. But as ego fixation diminishes we begin to see our own responsibility in the matter, and eventually our own naked authority.

Meredith: Your dialogue on authority has been churning over and over in my thoughts. I feel a little dissonance with this word – maybe it is an adolescent rebellion to authority! It is like an old dead poisoned word. I do not feel like any kind of authority, on anything, not one single thing, however, I do recognize a deep trusting of my own heart. There is an odd conflict of ideas, to be more unknowing, and an authority at the same time. But I think I understand what you are referring to. An example is that I do walk my own path, not subscribing to any particular authority to follow exactly. I just rely on my own deep inner knowing, and have a simple, very simple context for this knowing, without a particular need of any external authority. Even when I ask you a question, your answer may either fit for me or not, as you suggested might be the case, a long time ago. I like to give your wisdom sharing some silent time and just let the particles of truth for me filter in, and allow the rest to just drift softly away – kind of like those clumps of cotton from the cottonwood trees blowing in the breezes right now. In our sharing, I have often had the experience of a truth in you sparking a truth in me. This also happens as I read other’s truths as well, and I notice a synchronous quality of certain truths coming round again and again, touching me, shaking me, waking me, breathing in me, living in me. And with your eyes you have begun to see the truth of love residing in me, recognizing that it is who I am even before I did. This truth is beauty and it is freedom. It feels simple, fresh, empowering, creative and has literally made me come alive.

Akilesh: You recognize how words have acquired a dead meaning, and how we are able to bring them alive, bring aliveness to them, resurrect them so that they are again fresh, authentic. Authority is a tremendously loaded word, freighted with all kinds of negative meaning. But you got the point. The truth and beauty of the love residing in you naturally leads to an internal feeling of certainty that is self existing. It requires no external confirmation and thus it stands on its own authority. You know? It is so real, so clearly present within the heart that it doesn't need any propping up by external authority, i.e. society, religion, science, culture, etc. It cannot be proved in a rational manner. Nonetheless it is real, it exists. Standing on nothing, you stand on your own authority, you declare your love, the existence of this love you have found residing within you -- not as a feeling, because feelings come and go, but as an existential and experiential fact. It is paradoxical, like being without reference point and asserting, "I am my own authority." Like if someone said, "On what authority do you assert such a truth, the truth of love residing within you?" Well, you have no scientific proof or socio-religious consensus. You simply stand on your own authority, on what you have undeniably discovered.

Blossoming of Understanding

"The emergence and blossoming of understanding has nothing to do with any tradition, no matter how ancient or impressive - it has nothing to do with time. It happens completely on its own when a human being questions, wonders, listens, and looks without getting stuck in fear, pleasure, and pain. When self-concern is quiet, in abeyance, heaven and earth are open. The mystery, the essence of all life, is not separate from the silent openness of simple listening."

Toni Packer, quoted in The Shambhala Sun, July 2005
Post by Akilesh

In Silence

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

Thomas Merton

***

This poem, including the silent spaces
between the words, changed my life.

I feel tremendous gratitude to Thomas Merton.

Keep Turning the Wheel

...it is in the continued practice of uniting with
your work that you turn the wheel of the Dharma
for yourself, for the Sangha, for the world.

Robert Aitken.

***

A friend of mine was telling me a sweet story about
a dream she had. She dreamt of her favorite teacher,
whom she no longer has contact with. In her dream,
she saw his face, illuminated by the sun, looking toward
her, smiling. He was diligently turning an old wheel
through the garden. That is all, just turning the wheel.

And then she knew: he is well, all is well.

The Temple Bell

The temple bell stops
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.

Basho

Soaring

Sitting in solitude on my porch this morning, I watched as a crow flew silently past, a graceful dark splendor soaring amidst the forested green backdrop. Dark splendor.

I have this little game I play when I observe a soaring bird. A bird in flight has become a cue to me to recognize the presence of spirit, of the Absolute soaring within and throughout my life. The ephemeral presence of the soaring bird is graceful, silent, seemingly motionlessness yet moving great distances. Even when this presence is as dark as the crow, midnight black like a hole in space, this darkness appears as splendor, shiny, curiously reflecting light. I have come to believe that this is also true of our darkest night, our sorrows, our most difficult pains. There is some ‘terrible beauty’ within the dark, even if it is just the feel of our own spaciousness. I think this is what Rilke was referring to in his poem, Silent Friend.

This poem and the image of the soaring bird stirred tender memories of sorrow, of soaring gulls, and of flashing waters. Rising up through these images is the memory of my dad’s recent passing, and in particular, the of scattering his ashes into the Columbia River from the pilot boat he worked on for many years. I recall it was a very rainy, blustery day, early February of this year. When we arrived at the mouth of the river, near the sand bar, we scattered my dad’s ashes and tossed two flower wreaths onto the river. The flowers only lasted a very short time before being absorbed into the choppy, ‘flashing’ waters. I remember thinking the image conflicting, such as: Flowers in the river? Fancy florist bouquets out on this rough current? The place and images of my father’s life work, of the river, buoys, and ships, of ladders, ropes and anchors marked by roses?

Yes, that place and time was marked by roses. Now I realize that it doesn’t matter that they, in their delicate charm, were a contrast, or that they lasted only a few minutes, for the image of their graceful beauty floating there on the choppy water amidst the ashes is still with us all. As time passes, the images of the flowers remains, enlarges, becomes symbolic, even as we remember that they filled to overflowing and quickly became submerged.

Today, I serendipitously found this poem by Rilke. With great intuition, his poem thoughtfully weaves together many threads of this memory for me:

The Rose’s Innerness

Where is to this innerness
an outwardness? Upon what ache
do you lay its soothing petals?
What heavens find their reflections
in the secluded sea
of these wide open roses,
these carefree floating blossoms, see:
how loosely they lie in their looseness,
as if a trembling hand
could never spill and so disperse them.
They barely manage to stay afloat;
many of them let themselves
be filled to overflowing
and now flow over with inner space
into the days that ever more fully encircle them,
until the whole of summer
is contained in one room,
a room envisioned in a dream.

Ranier Maria Rilke

***

Today, many birds soar
through the overcast sky.
Blithe spirits, silent in their flight,
opening out the inner spaces of memory,
of rose petals on the water,
of longing, of sorrow, of wisdom,
turning outwardness to inwardness
whispering to existence, to flashing waters,
to all who fill to overflowing, “I am.”

Silent Friend

Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space.
Let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night. What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.
Move through transformation, out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in their magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,
whisper to the silent earth: I’m flowing.
To the flashing water say: I am.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Laughter

"I laugh when I hear that the fish in the
water is thirsty.
I laugh when I hear that men go on
pilgrimage to find God."

Kabir

The Heart

It is so amazing what the heart is able to do. Growing up, we think we know about heart because we know the feeling of longing, of loving, and of heart-breaking. But beyond that, what do we know of the heart?

Now, I know this...

The heart's capability knows no boundaries. It can be soft, and tender, wide and full. It opens unexplainably when you allow it to, and perhaps, with full maturity, never needs to close again. The heart exudes an energy that can be felt across the miles even when not seen. “The mind creates an abyss, and the heart crosses it.” (Sri Nisargadatta) Indeed, we are not limited by our hearts – only our minds, and our culture, religion, and our own self imposed rigidity.

Opening wide to others entails trusting our heart. With this trusting, we feel a softening, a deep tenderness that we didn’t know we were capable of. The openness of the heart raises us up; it brings us up the tonal scale, to the most ‘sacred octave of our being.’ (Aida) Here, undeniably, we hear a song. Wait – is it the skylark?

Resting here, lingering here in love, we begin to develop a rich experience of this relating. Our wisdom in the domain of the heart deepens. In this depth there is a merging, not one heart feeling another, no. Perhaps in the beginning we think it is just one heart, opening, growing, expanding, pulsing, beating, feeling, longing, loving, aching, or grieving. The fully open heart feels all of this. What was once a fine filter becomes a wide filter, and then, eventually, there is a dissolving of the mesh all together, hearts, no longer separate, beating as one.

There are infinite expressions of love. The consciousness with which we traverse our landscapes will reveal the many manifestations of this simple, pure quality that we radiate when we engage our hearts.

My spiritual friend has helped me to engage and fully open my heart. He has done it delicately, with illumination and tenderness. He has brought my heart to the heart of God, my hand in his hand. At times there is a pristine quality to this capacity to open my heart – like newly fallen snow or a smooth glassy lake; my open heart is calm, tranquil, and free. At other times, there is energy from my heart that is palpable, a vibratory celebration within my heart.

Today, my heart is both calm, and celebrating. It is a lovely combination. I am filled with gratitude.

Blessings flow.

Trust in Simplicity

"I have to let go of the need to know so much. What we can know is so small - the holiness around is so large. Now I trust in simplicity, simplicity and love."

Hindu Sage

Gift of Stillness

"To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. I call it stillness, but it is a jewel with many facets: that stillness is also joy, and it is love." Eckhart Tolle

Post by Akilesh