The Invisible Flame - Eric Baret & Mooji

The heart is yearning to be open.
When a heart meets an open heart,
when a match approaches a lighted match,
it rejoices in unity, in the flame;
there is no longer a match.
This is called transmission.
But nothing is transmitted.
No one transmits, no one receives.
There is heart-to-heart transmission.
There is only one heart...

Eric Baret

~

Don't take the behavior of the mind and body
to be a reading of your true Self.
Let everything happen,
but know and confirm inwardly,
you are watching everything from a very stable place...

There is a stillness there.
There is an untouched silence.
You must acknowledge this.
You must be like the Polar Star in the heavens.

Your heart is the Polar Star, the North Star.
Everything is revolving but it is still - unmoving.
You are the stillness,
the Silence inside which all is moving.
You only have to recognize and love that.
and nothing will trouble you.

Everything is the flow of time.
Everything is coming and going,
including even this body.
It is like a burning candle.
But there is an invisible flame inside
that never goes out.

Fix your attention inside the Formless
and leave the rest to God.
[However we know "God" to be]

Mooji

Om is the Sound Inside Silence - Fred LaMotte

Om is not just a chant. Om is the vibration of absolute Silence.
It is the paradox of trembling stillness, Silence rising and falling
in waves of itself.  Creation is born from the womb of a paradox -
Om.

Om is the unstruck sound whose resonant womb bears heaven
and earth, the galaxies, and all the space beyond the rim of time.

Physicists tell us that emptiness shimmers with "fluctuations of
the vacuum" - the virtual photons and electrons of light and energy
that burst forth as the physical universe, created from nothing.

Om is the sound of this fullness in the harmony of emptiness, the
mysterious Word that speaks the worlds out of Silence.  Om is
not human speech, but divine wonder.

...you can hear it.  Just be quiet and listen.  Om is the sound inside
the Silence.

When you truly listen, your mind does not make the noise of
thinking. Then you hear the thunder of quarks and neutrinos.
You hear the chorus of a trillion suns in a single proton.

...Drown in the oceanic waves of quietness.  There is no more
listener, only boundless Listening...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Vortex Art
done with craypas oils
and fingers...

2012

Perfect Pulsing Silence...

This piece below was written during a "practice" I call
"window sitting"
when I sat at an open window late at night in silence,
experiencing the "Rhythm of Silence";
 just being aware, just noticing -
just listening to the "sound" of Silence,
experiencing the smells and the feel of Nature
out the open window -
writing in the dark of night, or sometimes in the moonlight,
at the window sill...

Perfect Pulsing Silence

Perfect pulsing Silence
Utter Stillness
Breath-giving Life.

This is what I come to the window for -
to sit in utter and complete Silence - the pulse of Life;
to smell, feel and sense Silence;
to feel its Aliveness,
to hear Its Song...

Sitting in the Silence of
not "knowing" puts one in a place of really listening,
with no agenda or expectation,
leaving the space open for Silence to speak,
to calm the mind and
sing Its song to the heart...

I listen deeply for the song of Silence...

A breeze touches my arm gently,
inviting me to be aware...

I gaze inward
to the Silence within,
that is mirrored
in the silence of the night.
It's all the same Silence...

The Rhythm of Silence begins ~

I sit back in the chair
listening to the pulsing Silence
within and without,
feeling Its familiar Rhythm,
feeling the dance of intimacy begin again...

Nothing disturbs IT

Nothing disturbs the depth of IT
Nothing prevents Its song
from being sung ~

In this intimate Silence I am reminded that
everything occurs within The Silence;
all life, all breath, all death, all movement
occurs within this vast space of Silent Awareness
that we are...

In the Silence of Awareness
I know everything is living according to ITs
natural order ~ is following ITs natural order,
including this life I call mine...
All life is being lived
by the hush of The Mystery...

All is the pulse of Silence ~
The pulse of Life ~

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
May 2011

Guru Cat says...

Peering over the computer screen, with serious piercing eyes,
Guru Cat said:

Slow Down...
Listen to your Inner Being...
Lighten your burdens...
Create the environment that you need
to be whole, to be fully Alive in your Being -
from the core of your Being...

This requires you to be in touch with
the "Untouched Silence" within - she said...

I listened...

Step off the treadmill of life...
Be intuitive...  Be creative...
Release the entanglements
that keep you bound to the treadmill
going nowhere...

Just Stop!
Rest!

Just Be!

Yes, Guru Cat, I said - sheepishly...

Re-align with your own Rhythm of Being...
Don't live up to anyone's expectations of who you are
supposed to be;
the roles they gave you to play,
the identities they projected onto you to wear,
just to please them...

Yes, Guru Cat, I said - feeling dejected...

Quit pushing so hard - she said stoically...
Retire your overactive mind with its
mental gyrations of thoughts and stories
*about* you;
your obligations, your duties,
and do what makes your Heart smile.
What makes your Heart smile?

I don't know, Guru Cat, I said - sadly...

Find out, before it's too late, Guru Cat said...

Yes, Guru Cat...  I knew she meant business...

Guru Cat sat - reading my troubled heart,
as if seeing right through me - and said:

The darkness, the fear, the stress, the weight,
*everything* that you carry will dissolve
when you're doing what your *Heart* wants to do.
Do you know what your Heart wants?

No, Guru Cat, I said - but I will know it when I
 *feel* it... right?

Guru Cat sat staring at me,
then said:

Love what you love - it's that simple.
Be what/who you are in your Heart.
Relax...  Breathe...
Open...

She lowered here eyes, turned away,
jumped down off the table
and disappeared.

Mystic Meandering

June 16, 2018

Silence is a Living Space - Therese Schroeder-Sheker

Silence is a Living Silence that is needed to hear the cry of the soul.
Abandon surface impressions and patterns, abandon what has become
comfortable, and embrace the sacred depth of being that asks us to
enter that which is wholly unknown and that which fosters genuine
metanoia [a transformative change of heart].  The Holy Silence
creates an inner clearing that makes room for new life, including
living, breathing Silence.  In this dimension
where time becomes space, life is enlivened.

Blocking the light of the soul results in a need to pre-package things,
ideas, emotions because they provide a semblance of light.  When
light of the soul is blocked, we develop a desire for things, not for
Silence.

[Through Silence] we can enter that which is wholly unknown with
a creative purity that is startling, because we are accompanied by
the companion-presence: Love.

Therese Schroeder-Sheker
From the introduction to:
Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness
by Robert Sardello

~

We need to re-orient our lives to be in constant resonance with
The Silence.  We have to rediscover lost realms, and at the same
time, clear away our deeply engrained desire to live by what
others have said, rather than discover inner truths for ourselves.

Robert Sardello
From: Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness

The Solace of Silence - Cheryl Sanders-Sardello

The enormity of life's tasks weigh and press on the day...
they demand and insist on a constancy of attention that is relentless.
But we are fortunate to have night's solace - in the silence that is
created by the dark.  Night... that melancholy time, when the stars
remind us of the Silence of God.  Here we can lean into the
unknown, setting aside the oppressive weight of our carefully
constructed version of who we think we are.  We can remember
how to see in the dark... with our ears... perceiving the Silence in
its holy echoing and resonance, its calling forth a knowing that is
from the soul.

The Silence sends us on a different pilgrimage.  It guards the heart's
fire and teaches us to speak from within with a language that is
imbued with the Sacred.  Words thus nurtured in the Holy Silence
fly forth to lead us back to the Silence from which they were born.

Cheryl Sanders-Sardello
From - Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness
by Robert Sardello

~

Several years ago I "practiced" what I called "window sitting."
I would sit in the window in the dark late at night when the "noise"
of the day had settled.  It was an incredible experience - just
listening to the silence of the night, leaning into the darkness, the
silence at the window, which drew me into the
deeper Silence of Being - the Sacred Silence within, as Cheryl describes.
I have gotten away from this "practice" of "listening" at the window
 to the Silence, but am rediscovering my way back...

~

What is necessary, after all, is only this; solitude, vast inner solitude.
To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours...

Rainer Maria Rilke

~

Photo - clouds, color inverted digitally

The Exquisite Ineffable...

Deeply, deeply return to the
Realm of the Exquisite Ineffable,
the Great Ocean of Primordial Silence
that pervades all life...

Quiet yourself into It and
recognize the pulse of Silence
reverberating through the body,
and the soul of your being.
Notice the subtle nuances of the
Ineffable's signature vibrations...

Feel a new aliveness rise up from the root of
manifest existence,
from the subtler realms of the Ineffable -
the unborn Living Silence...

Awareness heightens to this
Reality underlying all reality - all existence;
the deep Awareness of Being
where "Truth" is reborn within -
as a living, spacious, open-ended "knowing" -
that just "knows"...

Hold fast - be still - allow this "new" sense of Life
to give birth - to rise from The Deep
through your being, until the Ineffable
ItSelf becomes your Reality, your life,
your way of being in the world...

And so it is...

Mystic Meandering
June 11, 2018

Entropy...

The shadows have come to roost
and
everything

is
collapsing

~
~
~

~

The tides and ripples of entropy will continue
until all is returned to Source again ~

the Primordial State:
Pure Life Energy...

Entropy is not necessarily a "bad" thing.
It is the way of Existence.

It is a telescoping of everything that is,
back to its original Source/State;
a re-homing of all that has manifested in form,
the conceptual structures,
so that only
the Eternal Essence
remains...

Do not be alarmed by the seeming destruction
of what you have believed to be real.
The false must be released, shed - like dross.
In this there is a sense of chaos, destruction, loss, and death;
the crucible affect;
a state of alchemy,
the refinement of all things in existence
to its Original Nature.

Nothing is lost in the process.

All is coming Home.

The
Divine
Out-breath
Has
Been
Re-called.

Bring your awareness to the place of Stillness within.
Don't try to create order in the chaos.
But be still and let the chaos pass.
"Order" is found in the Stillness,
in returning to deep Stillness of Being.

The healing of mankind
is in the recognition of the
Truth of our Eternal Essence -
Infinite Beingness...

Entropy is the crucible of that healing.,,

Allow it...

The invitation
is to expand our view of reality
and return to the awareness of
our Eternal Being...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
written between
2004 and 2006

~

Photo - A pan of grease blobs
zoom blurred...  :)

I AM - Jeff Foster

[.....]

I take all forms, yet I cling to no particular form.

I do not say "I am form", I do not say, "I am not form."
I do not say "I exist." I do not say "I do not exist."
I do not call myself God, consciousness, awareness,
presence, spirit... or even Life.

I have no name for myself. I am anonymous.
Yet all names are my own.

Humans fight and kill and die over the names they gave me.

They form religions, dogmas, systems of thought.
They claim I am on their "side"
(I take no sides).
They say I belong to them
(I belong to nobody and everybody).

They try to figure me out.  They even claim to be me,
know me, channel me.
Some of them claim to have found The One Path that leads
to me.  They always have, they always will.

They do not know.  Their minds are too limited.

Yes 'mind' is one of my many ingenious appearances.

I appear as everything, yet when you stop and look for me,
you cannot find me.  I play in the cosmic hide and seek.  I
sometimes appear when you stop looking.

I am these words, and all the spaces in between them.  I am the
silence at the end of the sentences... and the expectation at their
beginning.  I am the black and white of it, and every shade of
grey, and every colour.  I am the understanding and the lack of
understanding. I am the similarity and the contrast.  I am the
separation and the unspeakable unity.

[.....]

I am male and I am female.  I am East and West.  I am inside and
outside.  I speak every language fluently.  I am all that is, all that
has been, and all that will ever be.  I am now, and never now.  I
cannot be reduced to anything.  Eternities pass in the space of a
breath.  Aeons are my lifeblood.

I am breathing you now.
I am the in-breath and the out-breath of you.  I am every sacred,
intimate breath.  I am every one of your thoughts arising and
dissolving in the vastness.  I am every feeling surging like a comet
through the universal body. 
I am sorrow, I am anger, I am fire, I am water.
I am always here, whether I am recognized or not.

I am nothing and everything, nobody and everybody.

[.....]

The story of "I" is always different, yes.  That's my creativity.
But "AM" is always the same.  AM. OM. 
That is my unchanging nature.

Do not seek me.  Do not look for me in time.  Do not be proud
that you have found me.  I am not your trophy.  I am not food
for your hungry ego.  Simply admit that I am already here.
Admit that I have always been here.
And live your life as a constant remembrance of me.  Devote
yourself to the joy of being...  Let your life be your love song.
Let your actions and words express me, bring me into form.

I am your deepest wisdom.  I was there at your birth.
Do you remember?

With love,

The Beloved

Jeff Foster
Excerpt from "I AM"

website

Facebook

One Underlying Undivided Reality - Brian Thompson

Life,
is sustained by life.

This,
is living.

We rely upon another.

There is no living,
outside of the continual process,
of our mutual interdependence;
which co-mingles with our pending
temporal dissolution.

Life is change.
Life is impermanence.

There is no being without non-being.
From nothing comes something,
and to nothing, all things shall return.

Life requires life,
for without this principle,
no-thing could possibly be.

Life is seen
only through its own reflection.

Our only experience
is that of ourselves.

There is only one life;
one consciousness, one awareness;
one spirit, one energy;
one source.

One life, being lived through infinite lives,
one life, being lived through infinite manifestations,
one life, as seen through infinite points of view.

One life,

appearing as an ever-flowing stream
of unique reflections.

Despite the infinite phenomena that appears to arise,
and no matter the myriad manifestations that seem to be,
there is only one underlying reality,
and it remains undivided,
empty of independent name or form,

pervading all that Is - and you are That.

One consciousness experiencing itself,
through all that it dreams into being.

Life is simply happening,
and you are That;
the essence in which
this present moment
is now happening.

Be not mistaken;
you are not subject to whatever happens,
for that is merely a conception of the mind,
a mental byproduct of the non-existent past.

What you are,
is the infinite field of awareness,
in which all happenings appear,
but you remain unaffected and free
from whatever form it assumes.

You are the theatre of consciousness,
in which all happenings appear;
remaining free from them all.

You are the knowing
that knows all that is known.

The eternal witness.

And this is the suchness
of our shared Universal Self;
an empty and limitless presence,
in which all of our human
conceptions, perceptions, and sensations
are imagined into being.

In truth,
no-thing can divide us,
regardless of the thoughts
that the mind tends to think
and project onto whatever we perceive.

We, the aware sentient,
are mutually interdependent
co-arising together,
as a single and harmonious whole.

One life.
One consciousness.
My breath is yours.

Brian Thompson

Zen Thinking

via - No Mind's Land

~

Sri Yantra artist - J.C. Quintin

When it is one-sided - Hermann Hesse

I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard
as a joke or foolishness...

It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true!

That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into
words when it is one-sided.  Everything is one-sided which can
be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided,
all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness.

When the exalted "Gotama" [Gautama] spoke in his teachings
of the world, he had to divide it into "Sansara" [Samsara] and
Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering, [and freedom
from suffering, into "enlightened"and "unenlightened"].  It cannot
 be done differently, there is no way for him who wants to teach.

But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us,
is never one-sided.

A person or an act is never entirely "Sansara" [Samsara] or
entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely
sinful.  It does really seem like this, because we are subject to
deception and the confines of time, which causes us to adhere
to one fixed belief and does not account for the fullness of truth.
Every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the
world is considered complete.  And so we must love the world
in its completeness...

...love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing
of all.

Hermann Hesse
From: Siddartha

via - The Beauty We Love

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Yin-Yang Mandala

Being Authentic - Elizabeth Lesser

The irony of hiding the dark side of our humanness is that our
secret is not really a secret at all.  How can it be when we're all
safeguarding the very same story?  That's why Rumi calls it an
Open Secret.  It's almost a joke - a laughable admission that each
one of us has a shadow self - a bumbling, bad-tempered twin.
Big surprise!  Just like you, I can be a jerk sometimes.  I do unkind,
cowardly things, harbor unmerciful thoughts, and mope around
when I should be doing something constructive.  Just like you,
I wonder if life has meaning;  I worry and fret over things that I
can't control; and I often feel overcome with a longing for
something that I cannot even name.  For all of my strengths and
gifts, I am also a vulnerable and insecure person, in need of
connection and reassurance.  This is the secret I try to keep from
you, and you from me, and in doing so, we do each other a grave
disservice.

Rumi tells us that the moment we accept what troubles we've been
given, the door will open.  Sounds easy, sounds attractive, but it is
difficult, and most of us pound on the door to freedom and happiness
with every manipulative ploy save the one that actually works.  If
you're interested in the door to the heavens opening, start with the
door to your own secret self.  See what happens when you offer to
another a glimpse of who you really are.  Start slowly.  Without
getting dramatic, share the simple dignity of yourself in each moment -
your triumphs and your failures, your satisfaction and your sorrow.
Face your embarrassment at being human, and you'll uncover a deep
well of passion and compassion.  It's a great power, your Open Secret.
When you heart is undefended you make it safe for whomever you
meet to put down his/her burden of hiding, and then you both can
walk through the open door.

Elizabeth Lesser
from: Broken Open

~

...the person you think of as "yourself" exists only in you, and
even you don't really know who that is.  Every person you meet,
have a relationship with, or make eye contact on the street with,
creates a version of "you" in their heads.  You're not the same
person to your mom, your dad, your siblings, [that] you are to
your coworkers, your neighbors, or your friends.  There are a
thousand different versions of yourself out there, in people's minds.
A "you" exists in each version, and your "you", "yourself", isn't really
"someone" at all.

Commentary on a chapter in a book called
One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand
by Luigi Pirandello

Thirst Listens - Fred LaMotte & Rumi

At dawn, raindrops
in dogwood blossoms,
a thrush among alders,
the plaintive yelp of seals
from the rocks over still water,
almost as if they call
from deep inside
over the mythic sea
your ancestors crossed
to bring your bones
to this shore...

Now, for certain, you hear
the deepening silence
between all voices
born and unborn.
Drink of this.
A well makes no sound.
Yet you are beckoned
and approach
because your heart
is an empty pail,
and thirst listens.

Fred LaMotte
original title: "Hearing"

Uradiance

~

Yearn for more
...don't linger in any spiritual benefit
you have gained,
but yearn for more,
like one suffering from illness
whose thirst for water is
never quenched.

Rumi

~

I have been an [explorer] and still am.
But I stopped asking the books and the stars.
I started listening to the teachings of my own soul.

Rumi