The Paradox of Freedom - Amoda Maa

The closer we come to truth (and the closer we come to
living the truth), everything becomes paradoxical.  Yes, everything.
It's this and that.  It's human and divine.  It's messy and it's perfect.
it's time-bound and it's timeless.   It's relative and it's absolute.
It's form and formless.  Everything becomes paradoxical.

We start to live as this paradox, because truth is not an end point.
Truth is not an answer.  Truth is not a belief system.  Truth is an
open ended-ness within us.  And this is where freedom begins.

It's not a freedom that negates our human experience, with all its
changes, with all its ups and downs, with all its losses and heart-
breaks.  It's a freedom that allows us to live at peace with all of
it, even when it's not peaceful.  It's a deep acceptance of what is.

It's a freedom that wipes away all the cover-ups, everything we tell
ourselves in order to protect ourselves,  to pretend that we're safe,
to imagine a perfect destination.  It's a freedom that wipes away the
layers of defended-ness, all the strategies that we create - mental
strategies, emotional strategies, energetic strategies - to get what we
think we want from life in order to feel comfortable, in order to
feel special, in order to feel loved.  But these cover-ups end up being
our prison.  And there is no fulfillment in this self-created prison.

Fulfillment only comes when there are no cover-ups. It's the fulfillment
of internal freedom, and has nothing to do with the external.  You
could be in a jail cell, and still this freedom is available.

Amoda Maa

~

What really matters is your
capacity to turn towards the
tenderness of your heart in
the midst of that which
offends you.

Amoda Maa

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Pristine Silence...

Pristine Silence
Untainted, Untouched
filled my chest...

I gasped at its sudden, unbidden
Presence...

Golden Silk slicing through me
like warm clarified butter,
in undulating waves of light...

It arose again and again from within,
so clean and clear.
I marveled at its clarity;
undistilled, undisturbed clarity...

This golden-hued Silence opened in my chest,
inviting me to look inside -
to see it clearly - to recognize "it."

This that I thought had been lost to me.
This - this Pristine Silence - that is the very
Presence of The Mystery...

I was both humbled and ecstatic
by the imagery - focused on the
Silken Silence that had cut through me,
opening me to ItSelf;
Inviting me inward in waves of
Golden Silk...

All I could do was watch internally -
in awe and wonder, as this Pristine Silence
split me open and kissed my heart -
and stayed...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 28, 2019

Personal Note:
How does one even begin to accurately describe
The Presence of The Mystery - the Indescribable -
that leaves its touch, its image, imprinted forever in
the heart.  Words can only try to translate what is
experienced - the treasure that is found in awesome
 wonder - leaving one wordless...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Infinite Unfolding - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

The Mystical Path
takes one into the depths of the Heart.
It leads you from the known to the unknown,
and then further into
the unknowable,
into a darkness brighter than
any light.

Nothing can prepare you for the Heart's journey,
for the places it can take you,
the depths and the heights
that are within you.
So many times  you think you are crazy,
bewildered and lost.
There are few signposts,
often little sense of direction.
It is our own unique journey.

It takes us to places where there are no
books or stories, no words to comfort us,
except the story of our own Heart,
our own confusion, longing and love.

We awaken to the simple and fundamental truth
that there is nothing other than 'God.'
Even the idea of a path is an illusion...

~

So what is this love story that unfolds within
the Heart of a Mystic?

How much of "our story" is [really] "God's story"?

...all one story,
One Light
split into many fragments,
yet always remaining
One Light...

This one story
is lived in millions of ways,
each story a unique fragrance of Love.
Every cell in creation lives its own love story -
its longing for the Source.
Human beings have the capacity
to make this story conscious,
to know the nature of their
hidden longing.

There can only ever be
one story,
because
there is only one Beloved,
and yet
we are part of this story;
our little "i"
must also be
a part of
The Beloved...

Infinitely Unfolding

Excerpts from:
Fragments of a Love Story
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Sufi Mystic

~

Please  note: I have taken excerpts from  the book
and arranged them in the form of a prose poem.

~

Photo: Mystic Meandering
Lotus Heart Stained Glass piece digitally zoom blurred

Sublime Union - Ameeta

At the root of awakening
is the yearning for reality
to know itself as
the formless it is.

At the root of manifestation
is the yearning for reality
to know itself as
the formfullness it is.

Form arcs towards formlessness
Formlessness arcs towards form.

Like lovers reaching out
to each other
arms outstretched
they seek to know the other
as themselves.

In their sublime union
is the beginning and the end,
and everything between;
the eternal dance,
always being always becoming.

As form awakens
to its formlessness
it grows in its capacity
to express formlessness.

Simultaneously
as formlessness awakens
to its formfullness
it grows in its capacity
to be expressed in form.

Form and its formlessness
evolve together.
The manifest and its unmanifest source
grow together
in the deep dark womb
of the fathomless depths.

Ameeta
2019

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Dance of Light and Dark - Winter Solstice

We are "The Mystery" come into being,
out of the dark and light...
Consciousness awakened,
Self replicating ItSelf;
or whatever word you give
"The Mystery"...

"I" dressed up as "me" - "me" as "I" - i/I
Formless as form,
Form as formless.
Light and Dark entwined...

Opening to "The Mystery"
we are free to be our unique selves,
however that is defined...

When we know this
"something" wakes up inside -
and hums...

Everything is OM -
- humming -
playing in the play of Life
as i/me
with a multitude of other expressions of
i/me...
"The Mystery" playing you, playing me,
each a reflection of the other...
Both "The Mystery" playing ItSelf...

When we let go of the conceptual words
and the frameworks of belief and interpretations

we are just FREE...

Letting go of the concepts of
i/I, me and "no-me", Self/no-self,
we are just Life living ItSelf here...
We are being LIVED
as we are...

There is something authentic
in allowing myself to be
just as i am...

Life is met from a different space -
the space of acceptance,
where everything is embraced
as it is...

The deep grief and sadness of loss,
the laughter and joy of new birth,
the dance of the dark and the light,
dancing together in the playground of Life...

Mystic Meandering
Winter Solstice 2019

~

Happy Solstice/Yule
the real reason for the season :)

~

Photo - Cosmic Swirl Paperweight

Authentically You - V. Erickson, Nepo & MM

Often times, a person will think they know you by piecing
together tiny facts and arranging those pieces into a puzzle
that makes sense to them.  If we don't know ourselves
very well, we'll mistakenly believe them, and drift toward
where they tell us to swim, only to drown in our own
confusion.

Here's the truth: It's important to take the necessary steps
to find out who You are [our True Beingness] because
you hold endless depths below the surface of a few facts
and pieces and past decisions.  You aren't only the ripples
that others can see.  You are made of the Ocean...

Victoria Erickson
Author of - Edge of Wonder

~

What it really comes down to is the clearness of heart
to stop defining who you are by those who have hurt you
and to take up the risk to love:
to live at the vibrant edge
of being spirit in the world
exploring the intoxicating quandaries
of being alive,
accepting the grace of our
humanness...

Mark Nepo
From - The Exquisite Risk:
Daring to Live an Authentic Life

~

It's about being enlivened from within;
being fiercely true to the core of our Being:
Compassion, Love and Pure Aliveness...

Open to how That wants to express ItSelf -
allowing the Dynamic Mystery that we are
to express ItSelf from deep within...
Not needing to take a stand on anything,
but finely attuned to the Heart of Love -
discovering a deeper Wisdom...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
Sept 2016

~

Art - Craypas Oils
done with fingers

2012

True Purpose - Author Unknown

What is my purpose in life? - I asked "The Void"

"Your problem is that you equate your purpose with
goal-based achievement, like 'enlightenment.'
The Universe isn't interested in your achievements,
your concepts and beliefs...

Just your Heart...

When you choose to act out of kindness,
compassion and love, you are already aligned
with your true purpose..."

From Facebook
Author unknown

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Mind Games...

Tired of noisy words,
the "spiritual abstractions"
cleverly strung together
by word-crafters espousing
their mind games - not
from the simplicity of their Heart,
but the complexities of their minds;
having been absorbed by too many
conceptual ideas: "there is only here
and Now"; "there is no other"; "there
is no me"; "'i' does not exist -
creating a phantom reality from those concepts
and ideas on which to hang your mind;
plying their paradoxes into 'non-dual' jargon.

Once a player in "The Mind Games",
I now seek refuge in the simplicity of the Heart,
and a more "direct experience" of what cannot be
defined by words and abstractions; not philosophical,
existential conundrums that boggle and confuse, but
a simple truth,
untethered and unencumbered...

I'd rather step into the unknown
and be free, than be tethered to the
certainties of noisy words and abstract
mind games that parade as truth.

Without those, I am free to BE - who I am,
as I am;
a unique expression of "The Ineffable Mystery" of Life
that animates my being -
living from the simplicity of the Heart...

_/\_

Namaste

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 14, 2019

~

Photo from the Internet
digitally altered

Goddess of the Dark - Ameeta

Who are you?
why do you speak to me so?
Stinging my eyes with unbidden tears
Filling my heart with unnamed sensation
Calling my whole being to pause

I don't know you
You are not a destination I aspired to
nor do you fit any image I've ever known
Yet when you appeared on my horizon
I recognized you instantly
in the soundless depths of me

You give no direction yet
But I can feel you anchoring me within
Preparing void as womb
Even as you lead me to lie there and die
in your embrace

Goddess of the Dark
I feel your presence in me now
And your strength and power
Perhaps now I will have the wherewithal
to let everything go
every last bit of it, good and bad

My highest ideal and my biggest fear
They are but two ends of one chain
that binds me to this world, this existence

I have to let them both go
I have to be prepared to die fully

Ameeta

May 2019

~

Photo - Someone's "selfie by mistake" that they sent me...
The Mystery of the Dark Goddess :)

The Traveler - Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden

The traveler who finds his road blocked by a river will use
a raft to reach the opposite shore, but, this shore, once
reached, he will not take the raft on his shoulders while
continuing his journey.  He will abandon it as something
which has become useless.

The raft represents the different kinds of methods, intellectual
training, or moral discipline, which are available as means to
bring the seeker of liberation to the "other shore."  On this shore,
both have lost their value; they bear no relation to the conditions
existing on the "other shore" and, like the raft in the parable,
they are only a useless burden...

To go beyond virtue and vice, opinions and beliefs, is to go
beyond the mental constructions which are built by the mind,
unceasingly, and to recognize, by transcendent insight, that
they are void of reality.  It is also to recognize, by transcendent
insight, that which has been imagined as practicing virtue,
surrendering to vice, as holding opinions and elaborating theories,
as traveling towards a goal and reaching a goal, is nothing but
an inconsistent phantom, devoid of reality.

Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden
from - The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhists Sects

with thanks to  - The Beauty We Love

~

I have been a seeker and I still am,
but I stopped asking the books and the stars.
I started listening to the teaching of my soul...

Rumi

~

Photo - taken by my brother

Untethered...

Untethered I step off into "space" -
the spaciousness of Just Being.
Flying into the vast unknown;
Invisible inner Forces showing me the way -
if I allow them to...

Not trying to "direct" my own way
by what I had known before;
letting the conceptual veils drop away...
Remaining open to an Invisible Force
at the Core of my Being -
the Inner Essence of what
makes me - me;
not an abstract construct,
but Life living ItSelf as me...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 29, 2019

~

Art - Untethered Heart
craypas oils
2009

digitally altered

There Is Room in the Heart - Ameeta

What distresses you
my friend?

Isn't it mostly
what your mind says
should not be?

The mind says
it should not be
and yet it is.

There is room
you know
there is room
in the heart
for what the mind
won't allow.

There is room
in the heart
for what the mind
can't understand.

There is room
in the heart
for every
contradiction
and conflict
for every pair
of opposites
to co-exist.

No no
shouts the mind again
it is wrong
and I won't allow it.

There is room
in the heart
for all of
shouting mind.

There is room
in the heart
for reality
as it is.

Recognize
your open heart
my friend
and receive life here.
Receive life
in this home of love
and know your heart
as the birthplace
of everything.

Ameeta

2011

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Season of Giving - Kahlil Gibran

You give but little when you give your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and
guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the
over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand
as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself...
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full,
the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much of which
they have - and they give it for recognition and their
hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.  And there
are those who have little and give it all.  There are the
believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer
is never empty.  There are those who give with pain,
and that pain is their baptism.  And there are those who
give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy,
nor give with mindfulness of virtue;  they give as in
yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give
unasked, through understanding.  And to the open-handed
the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than
giving.  And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given [away].
Therefore, give now, that the season of giving
may be yours and not your inheritors.

You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in
your pasture.  They give that they may live, for to withhold
is to perish.  Surely he who is worthy to receive his days
and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life
deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an
instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life while you,

who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

Kahlil Gibran

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo from the Internet