The Pathless Path is Endless...

As I move through my “elder years” the more I want to experience the Ineffable – directly - leaving the many trodden “spiritual paths” that I’ve been on all my life behind – actually I already have.  I have been on a pathless path for many years now.  

As a child I had an innocent longing to “know God” – directly – a child’s understanding of a religious “God” figure - and pursued that longing through many “spiritual paths” over many years.  Then the path evolved into the search for “Awakening” and “Enlightenment”  They are all the same “path” really, Longing for what is Ineffable in different disguises.  And now, after all these many paths, I finally stopped pursuing; not because I had finally “found” anything – but because The Ineffable is not a “thing” to be “found” –  It only and always just IS.  Everywhere… simultaneously.  One only needs to turn within, feel The Silence, and intuitively listen to and experience the movement of The Ineffable within – the inherent inner Reality - directly.  And yet, there is still a Longing for what I call the “Supreme Reality” beyond the surface of daily living – that which illumines everyday reality…

Being on a “spiritual path” implies that one is going somewhere, seeking some thing at the end of the journey - like retirement after a life of working, or the magical pot of gold at the end of the mythical rainbow, or even the mystical “Holy Grail.”  Or maybe one is even seeking an end to something, like suffering, pain, ignorance, their humanness, or the end of seeking itself.  But what if there was no need for seeking the illusive big “Some-thing” that spiritual seekers are seeking?   I know, I have been down the “seeking road” – many times. 

The pursuit of “Enlightenment”/”Awakening”/”Self-Realization” has lost its luster, its pull, its certainty of an end for me – much like the other paths I have taken throughout my life.  They are just constructs.  And I found they did not take me where my Heart longed to go…  And – I finally noticed that the energy of “pursuit” has a quality of trying to get something, or somewhere – to arrive; striving, struggling to find; grasping after an illusive thing that I called “Enlightenment”, “Awakening” (or God). Pursuing had become a burden that I must find what I was pursuing – like a game of hide and seek.

Not pursuing has relieved that burden.  It relieved the burden of feeling responsible for finding some thing - forever seeking.  Instead remaining open to The Ineffable allows the Ineffable to reveal ItSelf – like a treasure that has always been there, but suddenly reveals its brilliance in the every-day-ness of life, when we aren’t looking.

Years of seeking and pursuing brought me to the realization that as we “evolve” the “path” dissolves.  What we think we “know” about The Ineffable, God, life, spirituality changes, and we find ourselves in a place of not needing to seek, not needing to know anything about The Ineffable, but only wanting to experience The Ineffable; to experience that which can’t be truly “known” with the mind – but through a more intimate, intuitive “knowing” with the whole of our being.  Discovering (or rediscovering) the Ineffable for ourselves through an awareness of and deep intimacy with the Silence of this Grand Mystery, through continually coming back to the timeless space of Silent Awareness of what is always there – the space of The Ineffable Mystery of Being.

Meditative Silence and Awareness opens the door to what I experience as a “Supreme Reality.”  But it’s not a “place.”  The “spiritual path” doesn’t go anywhere.  It doesn’t end, but endlessly unfolds, and deepens, and therefore continues as an inner pathless path of openness and direct experience; experiencing the feeling of the Ineffable, the felt sense of the underlying Mystery of Existence – the Breath within the breath –the underlying Rhythm of Life – however that manifests for each of us – until we are re-absorbed into the Ineffable, timeless Great Mystery ItSelf…

“…all the activity (seeking) eventually leads us to a giving up.

  And in this surrender what is revealed is seen to be what has always been here

 – before the searching began…

  The task turns out to be ceding to stillness…

Falling back and resting.

   Amidst life itself we find our self sinking back into what is underneath the surface,

 recognizing our true fundamental nature…”

Joan Ruvinsky

Pathless Yoga

In memory of Joan Ruvinsky

who was reabsorbed into the endless

 Ineffable Mystery 

March 21, 2016

~*~

Photo: My father’s footsteps in the snow

taken by my father c. 1952/53

If I Appear Lost - Mark Nepo

[If  it appears that] I am lost,

[It means] that the few maps I’ve found or made up

have brought me to the edge of the unknown…

When I can’t speak at all

I don’t mean anything.

It’s just that I’ve unstitched the words

and have slipped into the

silence they contain…

Mark Nepo

Excerpt from the poem: “Entering Our Tenth Year”

From: Inside The Miracle

Unique Lunatics - Chuck Surface

[.....]

There are only a few lunatics,

who through no choice of their own,

have minds consumed with Wonder,

Hearts Aching with Longing,

who are, in a unique way...

Troubled.

It's a Blessing, not a curse,

to be thus consumed, thus distracted,

so that even amidst life's joys and sorrows

one cannot escape the ever present Question

spoken wordlessly, in the Heart of Being...

What is this...

This... being alive...

This experience of existing...

And... What am I?

A kind of Madness,

there in each breath, and heartbeat,

filling us, in the same instant,

with Unbearable Longing,

and Longing's Fulfillment.

A Longing born of that which is Longed for.

Containing, like a seed nurtured in the Heart,

the Fulfillment of the Heart's Desire.

Longing and Fulfillment, impossibly...

Present, both at once.

I find these fellow lunatics, occasionally.

And over tea we chat of the Great Mystery,

of Her inexpressible Beauty.

Words spoken in Love and Wonder,

of that which cannot be spoken.

[.....]

Chuck Surface

Excerpt from the poem: "Troubled"

Chuck's poems can be found on

In the Garden of the Beloved

and Facebook

~*~

Tea Anyone?

Prosetry on "Reality"...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In “The Deep Reality”

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

In the waiting without words
Gratitude
wells up…

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

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

We Rest

~*~

Mystic Meandering
March 13, 2016

~*~

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

Nisargardatta

~*~

Photo:  Light Waves

Reflection of Light on a wall
from a door knob!

Collapse the Scaffolding...

Allow everything to collapse…
All the structures that you have erected,
that you cling to;
beliefs, opinions, self-images, self-identities;
self-definitions;
what you *think* you are;
believe you are;
want life to be;
desire to have;
and feel about
your ‘self.’

Collapse everything
that you hold onto
as your ‘self.’

Collapse into the Ineffable Mystery of Being;
with no sense of I am this or that;
no sense of a separate ‘me’;
just pure Life
expressing
the
stream
of
Living
moving
in,
through,
and as
’you.’

Collapse into the Fullness
of
Emptiness,

of
Silence,

of
Stillness…

Experience what’s
beyond the structures
that you’ve tried
to hold in place for so long
with your scaffolding:
your “ego”,
your “personality”…

Feel the Vastness of Being when there’s
nothing to cling to…

No identity
No self-image
No plan
No concept of life
No belief
No opinion
No judgment
No *sense* of 
’self’
to hold
’you’
up.

When the false scaffolding collapses

What is “behind” this “you”
that you *think* you are?

Nothing but the Ineffable Mystery of Life ItSelf…

~ ♥ ~

Mystic Meandering

Meditative Writings

July 2011

Losing The Maps - Mark Nepo

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

Mark Nepo

Poem from: Inside the Miracle