This morning
I woke up thinking – as usual - feeling discouraged that it is not the Vastness
of the Infinite that I experience first thing, but the mind with its thoughts. And then it occurred to me that thinking was
not really the problem. It was my
perception. Thinking arises in the
Infinite. It is a function of the
Infinite Mind. There is no separate
“thinker.” You can’t *stop*
thinking. If we attempt to get rid of
“thinking” we create duality – the mind vs the Infinite. But the mind and thought are not separate
from the Infinite, as if one is better than the other. It is all the Infinite living Itself – even
through the mind… Thinking is not a
problem. It’s just a matter of bringing
our awareness to the Presence of the Infinite Vastness within that is aware of
thinking happening…
“I am everywhere present’”
said the Infinite.
Seek me in the stately trees
or the melodies of sparrows
and you will surely find me.
Seek me in the stately trees
or the melodies of sparrows
and you will surely find me.
Look for me in the Buddha’s smile,
the countenance of Christ,
the words of the Koran and Sanskrit prayers.
I am always there.
Turn your attention to the sky
where the movements of moon and stars
trace my beauty…
Experience true emptiness
and my presence permeates the void.
Now bring your focus closer
to your heart.
Grow still and find me within you.
Separation dissolves like salt water
when you experience your true identity as me.
the countenance of Christ,
the words of the Koran and Sanskrit prayers.
I am always there.
Turn your attention to the sky
where the movements of moon and stars
trace my beauty…
Experience true emptiness
and my presence permeates the void.
Now bring your focus closer
to your heart.
Grow still and find me within you.
Separation dissolves like salt water
when you experience your true identity as me.
From knower and perceived,
seer and seen,
from two comes One.
seer and seen,
from two comes One.
Practice devotion and let go into
the ocean
of my love,
or be the open space from which all things arise.
of my love,
or be the open space from which all things arise.
One and two,
duality and union,
are both true.
duality and union,
are both true.
So I say to you be jubilant,
and be at peace,
for inside you is the seed and fruit,
the tree and root.
Choose to be in communion with me
and see the whole of this
creation unfused with one energy…”
and be at peace,
for inside you is the seed and fruit,
the tree and root.
Choose to be in communion with me
and see the whole of this
creation unfused with one energy…”
Danna Faulds
From: Prayer to the Infinite
From: Prayer to the Infinite
“The ordinary and the unified
field
don’t just co-exist,
they coincide in the same place,
at the same time.
Divine and human
can’t be teased apart -
there is no separate thread
to pull heart from mind and soul.
they coincide in the same place,
at the same time.
Divine and human
can’t be teased apart -
there is no separate thread
to pull heart from mind and soul.
There is only the unbroken chain
of wholeness
forged link by link in a continuum.
What is sacred and awake is
inextricably braided into the everyday,
but we forget that we can’t dissect
the mundane from the radiant.
forged link by link in a continuum.
What is sacred and awake is
inextricably braided into the everyday,
but we forget that we can’t dissect
the mundane from the radiant.
We lose ourselves in the rush to
get
things done.
things done.
Our memory grows dim
and there is such longing.
We desperately seek something,
anything,
to plug us back into what we’ve always been,
forgetting that the disconnect is only an illusion,
easily erased in the choice to see the truth…”
and there is such longing.
We desperately seek something,
anything,
to plug us back into what we’ve always been,
forgetting that the disconnect is only an illusion,
easily erased in the choice to see the truth…”
Danna Faulds
From: Prayer to the Infinite
From: Prayer to the Infinite
“I was born to bridge
the pairs of opposites
to span the apparent
distance between light
and dark,
joy
and sorrow.
I exist to see past differences,
to open my arms
so wide that all
I can see and know
and be
is inside my reach.
I am here to give and receive love;
so closely attuned to All That Is
that breathing is an act
of passionate attraction.
to span the apparent
distance between light
and dark,
joy
and sorrow.
I exist to see past differences,
to open my arms
so wide that all
I can see and know
and be
is inside my reach.
I am here to give and receive love;
so closely attuned to All That Is
that breathing is an act
of passionate attraction.
I am not caught,
but freed by the seeming
contradictions between
seer and seen,
knower
and
unknown…
but freed by the seeming
contradictions between
seer and seen,
knower
and
unknown…
In the tidal ebb and flow
between lover and beloved
I explore the rugged
coastline of surrender…”
between lover and beloved
I explore the rugged
coastline of surrender…”
Danna Faulds
From: Prayers to the Infinite
From: Prayers to the Infinite
Danna Faulds is a poet, writer,
practitioner and teacher
of Kripalu Yoga
practitioner and teacher
of Kripalu Yoga
~
The other
morning I imagined that “i”, this ‘me”, this “self”, that I have been
conditioned to *believe* is separate from the Infinite, dissolved into the vast
Ocean of the Infinite, like an ice cube melting into the vast expanse of the
Ocean of Existence. They are the same Essence. And I remembered, once
again, that there is really no separateness between "me" and the Infinite, even though I
often live that way… “i” is a wave of
the Ocean, moving with the Ocean, as the Ocean…
Everything dissolves back into the Infinite Ocean
”Become the sky…
Take an axe to the prison wall…
Walk out like someone born into color.
You’re covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side…”
Slide out the side…”
Rumi
~
You might also like to read my own meditative
writings
on the subject:
Yes this is it, isn't it, thoughts are what the mind does and by wanting things to be otherwise we create such internal disharmony.
ReplyDeleteAh this learning how things really are is a process to let go into, don't you think? It seems to be our life's work.
lovely photos too!
Yes, just allowing the mind to do what it does. Not needing to get rid of it or be anything other than what we are...
DeleteDefinitely a continual surrender to the nature of things and ourselves.:) Seeing that "enlightenment" itself is not a time bound accumulation of wisdom, knowledge, or insight, or self-awareness, but is an ever unfolding, fluid dynamic of dissolving the *belief* in a separate self that thinks it needs time to be "enlightened" :) and just allowing ourselves to dissolve into the Ocean that is already there - that we are... I am continually surrendering to this, continually letting go of the concept of "enlightenment" and just surrendering into the Infinite Ocean...
Thanks! :)
this is important, this line of thinking, of examining. i have often thought i am at odds in myself, one part of me starved for peace and perhaps dissolution, a dissolve into the infinite, and the other part of me so passionately alive in body and spirit, eager, yearning.
ReplyDeletejust now in conversation i have had a moment of clarity realizing that these two states are not at odds but that they are my existence itself. our existence, all existence, is the fracture of the whole into separate (but connected) parts flowing through and into each other but in separate forms. in separate forms we feel pain and desire to merge once again with the infinite, however, it is our form, our pain, our yearning, which gives us all our delight, all our joy, all our possibility of experiencing love and life. what more could we ask for, to experience and have consciousness of this experience, knowing we are of and will one day again return to the whole? what more could we ask for?
(i laugh. remind me of this, christine, when i go wandering lost again - which invariably i will do...perhaps momentarily)))
a beautiful piece i read at dean's (one of my favorite places to go http://beautywelove.blogspot.ca/ ) just last night:
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Thank you erin! Yes, nothing is at odds, as everything is Existence Itself, living Itself (as us) *as* ItSelf. The Infinite only sees ItSelf - not separate things. How could the Infinite separate ItSelf from ItSelf - but infuses everything with ItSelf... I personally don't view it as a "fracture" of the whole, but manifestations of the Whole in form, the Essence of which is always the same: the inseparable field of Consciousness that morphs Itself into all form without separating Itself - the Formless in form... We *are* Consciousness/the Infinite in form. And for whatever reason we have forgotten, or as you say wandered away - thus the longing. And it is this longing of the Heart that draws us back.
DeleteIt seems it is only our conditioning, our belief systems that have created this *idea* that we are separate. I know this, and yet I too still feel this longing... "We" (the idea of a me that is separate) dissolve when we realize that we have never been separate. The more time I spend communing with Silence the more I feel this. But I forget and go back into believing my separateness again, and the longing for union arises again.
And yes! There is this passion for Life, this Aliveness that is Consciousness ItSelf that animates us, that breathes us, that is passionate for ItSelf. The more we know the Essence of who we are, the more passionate we feel, the more we *feel* Life coursing through us.
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ReplyDeleteTrees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
ReplyDeleteA tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.
~ Hermann Hesse
from Trees, Reflections and Poems
(sorry to write so much. this was such a beautiful piece by Hesse and it was so timely.)
i love what you say of surrendering. surrender is such a practice.)))
xo
erin
Thank you for this beautiful piece on Trees. What can I say - I'm speechless.:) A first maybe :) Will have to re-read it and take it in.
Deleteerin, I just re-read the piece on Trees over at Dean's blog. All I can say is YES! YES! YES! :) and thank you....
DeleteSending awards your way......http://makebelieveboutique.com/2012/12/09/blogger-awards/
ReplyDelete:) Out of the blue...
DeleteLove that first sentence. How we continually expect other than what is. And how what is is just fine. acceptance of the fact that we are thinking beings and not overreacting to our thoughts. thanks for the reminder to look up at the sky, which i so often forget.
ReplyDeleteThank you Suki Poet :) Yes - accepting that we are thinking beings and not overreacting to thought - love that! Wise thoughts :) I forget too, which is why I write this stuff - to remind myself!
DeleteThis was so key, Christine... "my perception"... So often I realize that it's my own mind getting in my own way! ;o) Lately during meditation/prayer I've been trying to work more consciously with just being, and not letting mind and ego get in the way. Letting silence reveal more, rather than letting my mind take over. Very humbling stuff! Happy Week ((HUGS))
ReplyDeleteThanks Tracy - yes, I usually bring my awareness to the breath, a common practice, and just feel the rising and falling and that helps to just let the thoughts be as they are, and then bringing my awareness to the Awareness of Presence within also helps, sometimes :) I find each meditation time is different, but it is the awareness that counts :)
DeleteWhat a lovely and inspirational post, thank you for bringing these words together here.
ReplyDeleteWonderful. x
And thank you Susannah for coming over and leaving your comment! Good to see you again :) And what an uplifting post you have as well with Sammy and Mr. Squirrel :)
DeleteMakes me think of this famous line from the movie Casablanca:
ReplyDelete" it doesn't take much to see that the problems of (three little) people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. "
So true! Thanks for the reminder! :)
Delete