The Challenge of Illness - John O'Donohue

We never value or even see some things in our lives until we
are just about to lose them.  This is particularly true of health.
When we are in good health, we are so busy in the world that
we never notice how well we are.  Illness comes and challenges
everything about us.  It unmasks all pretense.
When you are really ill, you cannot mask it.

Illness also tests the inner fiber and luminosity of the soul. 

Illness focuses us onto our "inner landscape", into resting
deeply in the inner silence of the Soul.  It is a remedial silence
that allows us to endure, to move through, but not necessarily
getting rid of the illness.  We can't have an agenda - only the 
deep acceptance of the companion - and learn to navigate it.

John O'Donohue
From - Eternal Echoes

~

Photo of Soft Sunset taken by my brother :)

 

Sacred Outrage - Rupert Spira

 

...look behind the resistance you feel to what is happening
 [in this country, the world].
See if the resistance comes from Love of Truth...  If it does then
 it is not an egoic resistance to what is.
It is Sacred Outrage because you know that things are
not in line with Love.

Love is God's Being [Pure Beingness] shining through us.
We are the modulation of that Infinite Being...
Everyone has something unique to offer...
Each person will be motivated to express Love and understanding
in different ways - some as activists, some as teachers, writers,
artists, poets, doctors, nurses, etc...
Don't inhibit your action with pseudo non-dual reasoning.
Resistance at the relative level of existence is necessary.
Ask: What is my resistance motivated by - fear and neuroses,
or Love and Intelligence...
Act from the place of Love and understanding.
Engage...
 from the Heart.

Rupert Spira

~

We weep when light does not reach our hearts.
We wither like fields if someone doesn't
rain their kindness upon us.

Meister Eckhart

~

Photo from the Internet

Finding the Rhythm - a meandering

 

”A balanced life is based on its own rhythm. 
If you don’t set your own rhythm, and have the discipline
 to follow it, your life will move at the speed of
the culture around [you], which moves too fast. 
The space we make for quiet time affects our thought patterns
and, in turn, the quality of our lives.
To what extent is the rhythm of your life a result of…..adapting…..
to the flow that surrounds [you]." 

Rod MacIver

 Or I would even say, to the people around you. Have we entrained
 to the people around us – living their rhythm?  I  know I have…

I feel a resonance with his words, knowing that I needed to find
 that sense of the larger Inner Rhythm again,
 not just my own personal daily rhythm with life,
but the Flow with the Inner Being, commonly called the Tao,
 the undercurrent flow of Life within – from which all movement
arises.

The only way I know to do this is to turn within to The Silence
where  The Rhythm of the Inner Being is felt – the Rhythm of Silence
 ItSelf.  Being in The Sacred Silence is what brings me joy,
and a felt sense of Presence.   Finding that Inner Rhythm,
The Silence of Being, is “Divine Communion.” 
 This, for me, is the True Rhythm, the Rhythm of Pure
 Being ItSelf – the deep undercurrent of Life that animates all life
 – which is The Silence.
  This is what calls to me – over and over again.

But the hypnosis of the world keeps me magnetized to the ways
 of the world and pulls me out of this deeper way of living and
 knowing. We are conditioned to be drawn to the external drama
 of the world, to chew on it, teethe on it…  It’s the pablum
 of the matrix we live in.  But no one trains us to turn within
 to the Quiet Inner Presence of Silence. 
And so we follow the rhythm of the world (the civilized, political,
 chaotic world), with its hypnosis of separation from our Inner Being,
instead of turning  inward to the Awareness of the Inner Rhythm;
to that interior space of The Rhythm of the “Great Mystery”
 that pulsates Its Aliveness within us, and does not depend
on a name, label, or identity – or the world’s rhythms…  

Mystic Meandering
2015

 

~

Mandala Art:  Mystic Meandering
 Bliss Lotus Mandala
2013

The Hush of "The Mystery"...

The Hush of "The Mystery"
silently moves through time and form...

Can you feel it? -
this silent hush
that lives in you,
that moves through you,
that communes with you
even when you don't know it?

It waits for you to stop and listen -
to sense Its Hush
infusing you -
beyond hearing,
beyond seeing,
beyond knowing...

It comes in sudden,
unexpected
breezes of awareness
wafting through your being -
in and out of your noticing,
but never really gone -

It invites you to enter
the cosmic seduction of
Its Presence,
to
follow Its Silence
more deeply,
into the cavern
of Its Heart
that awaits you
in the depths
if Its repose

Succumb
to what awaits you

in
the Heart of "The Mystery"

The Breath of the Eternal...

Love's Illumination...

~*~

Mystic Meandering
May 2015

~

I use the term "The Mystery" here, but one can call it:
The Infinite, the Ineffable, the Nameless, The Ultimate
Reality, The Beloved, and of course - God...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

"The Mystery", like Life ItSelf, is ever unfolding,
ever revealing ItSelf.
We are always in a state of discovering "The Mystery"
and what IT is revealing to us - ongoingly.
What IT offers each of us is unique, yet universal:
Speaking directly to our Hearts...
When I speak of "The Mystery", as in this poem,
it is always from my own direct "experience" of it,
for I am acutely aware that I *know*, intellectually,
nothing *about* "The Mystery",
only how "The Mystery" reveals ItSelf to and in my
Heart...

Namaste

_/\_

 

Beyond "Spirituality" - MM & A.H. Almaas

 

Beyond the "cloak of spirituality" that we wear,
in its many disguises, is the unconditioned Essence
of our own Being - the "Genuine Self",
the "Authentic Self". the "Precious Pearl"

at the depths of Beingness;
not the super-imposed conditioning of belief systems,
but the pure state of Being from deep within the
Quietness of Consciousness
that has no "belief", no conditioned "idea" of
"spirituality" - just pure Beingness,

living as we are...

Mystic Meandering
May 27, 2019

~

The non-dual realization is only a step toward
greater mysteries and forms of freedom
leading to the deepening realization
of the fullness of being human,
expressing the totality of the 
cosmos in all its physical and
spiritual dimensions -
living the simplicity
of
ordinary life.

A.H. Almaas

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
 Pikes Peak
taken from Greenland, Colorado

Ageless and Brainless :) - a meandering

Last week I had two MRIs,
one for the brain, (to see if I actually had one :))))
and the other the lumbar spine because of the problems
I've been having with balance and walking and tingling
in my legs, and ache in the sacrum...

The night of the MRIs I had a felt sense that there is something
within that doesn't *feel* 75.  I guess what the non-dualists
call "The Self."  It's like there's something inside the body-me
that doesn't age - is Ageless.  Maybe some call it the Soul.
The Inner Being, the Inner Spirit, The Essence, The Ineffable, etc.

But it's like I became *aware* of its Presence.
I woke? :):):):)

I'm aware that my/the body *is* aging, declining, losing its
functioning, including my brain/mind.  But there is this other 
"me" (non-dualists won't like that) - which isn't another "me" -
which isn't "me" - but something that isn't aging - watching all
this happen - which I now call "The Watcher" :)
But which is also known as The Source, the Infinite Self, and
sits at the very Core of my Being behind the Heart...

But this awareness of that didn't make "me" *feel* any better
physically.  Physically I'm still declining...

~

It also occurred to me, in that same flow that night, that the
brain *has* to be connected to, or *is* the mind.
(I have been told otherwise - that the mind is not the brain.)
You can't locate the mind - although people seem to point to
the head.  But it's apparently free-floating somewhere,
I guess... :)

But the brain has a "thinking" function...
I contemplated that the mind and the brain may not be
separate entities...
because... when the brain (the physical organ) starts to not
function properly, then the "thinking" function (of the brain)
is diminished or diminishing.  Thinking becomes garbled,
mixed up and unclear.  You lose cognition.
Then there's also a memory function of the brain, which also
deteriorates and you lose your memory because that section of
the brain has lost its functioning.  And there is a language function,
that when it declines you begin to lose your words, etc.
Hopefully you get where I'm going. :)

The mental functions apparently correlate information,
which become thoughts (?)

Where are these thoughts coming from now - once the brain
starts to deteriorate - is there a separate thing called mind - that
thinks....  hmmmmm

Geez - maybe I need an MRI of the brain more often.
It seemed to open up a new pathway?  LOLOLOL

Just ramblings, I know - with a little humor on the side...

But still....
something to ponder....

Mystic Meandering
April 5, 2025

~

Photo from the Internet

 

An Odyssey of "Spiritual" Liberation - a meandering...

 

The "spiritual"meandering that I do is really an Odyssey...
a life long, sometimes complicated wandering through life,
and down many "spiritual paths", marked by many changes;
a physical, psychological journey as well, and very much
an emotional one...

So in this sometimes challenging Odyssey that started with
Christianity, then led me to Metaphysics, Buddhism,
Non-Duality/Neo Non-Duality, I find myself seemingly landing
 in Buddha's lap again - revisiting mindfulness and awareness,
 at least for the time being....

And what I've gleaned so far in my "spiritual sojourn" from all
the "wisdom teachings" is that It's an ever evolving Odyssey.
There is no "end", no big bang, once and for all "enlightenment"
that we arrive at - with bells, whistles and flashing lights...

And here is what evolved for me,
and has, to some extent, been liberating...
And yet, it's all still a mystery...

~

At some point there was a Recognition of our
"Indigenous" Nature.  Not Native American Spirituality,
although I learned from that as well, but the felt sense of
our Fundamental Essence...

Liberating...

There was Recognition of "The Mystery" - in disguise - playing me/you!
Revealing Itself through the play of me/you - the Joy of me/you!

Liberating...

There is Recognizing more and more that we are "The Mystery" in
 form, which expresses Itself through our self - as our self...

Liberating...

There is Recognizing that "The Mystery"/The Ineffable is our
 Fundamental Essence, covered over by years of religious/psychological/
emotional conditioning and traumas - giving us an identity - which we
believe to be who we are - but aren't completely...

Liberating...

There is Realizing it is the beliefs about the "self" that dissolve, not the
self/ego/personality itself.  The personality then shines with the
Light of the Fundamental Nature.
This recognition is what liberates...
Not the pursuit of "enlightenment", or becoming "enlightened,
but recognizing the Inherent, liberated  Inner Being that we are -
our Essence - which is Ageless and unbound...

Liberating...

Liberation is not the "me/self" that is liberated.  It's "The Mystery"
ItSelf within that is liberated - in our recognition of it.  It's the
Infinite within us, that which animates us, that is liberated.
It all gets liberated in the recognition of Itself in us, as us.

the mystery is - that we are "The Mystery."

Liberated!

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 31, 2020

intro added April 2025

"The Mystery" in me bows to "The Mystery" in you!

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

"Happiness" Floats...

The other day I unexpectedly felt "happiness" 
flow through, amidst other darker emotions too...
It wasn't really "happiness", but more a calm
contentment, out of the blue...

And not even contentment,
more just a
still inner Quietness that grew...

A smile of the Heart

And just as easily as it came,
it went...
It just floated up -
and away...

Strange...

I did not create it...
It was causeless "happiness"
just visiting...

I met it with gratitude...

Mystic Meandering
April 2, 2025

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

It was never my "goal" to be "happy."
Never pursued it, never felt "entitled" to it.
Occasionally it does come to visit :)

The Art of Creating "Happiness" - Thich Nhat Hanh

What is the nature of joy and happiness?
How can we touch true joy in every moment?
How can we live in a way that brings a smile
to everyone we encounter?

Use your talent to find ways to bring
happiness [joy] to yourself and others.
The happiness that arises from meditation is
not the same as the feelings that come from
the pursuit of pleasure-seeking

Meditative joy has the capacity to nourish our
mindfulness, understanding, and love.
Live in a way that encourages deep meditative
happiness/joy in yourself.

You can vow to bring joy to one person in the
morning, and to help relieve the suffering of one
person in the afternoon.

Ask yourself, "Who can I make smile this morning?"
This is the art of creating happiness...

Thich Nhat Hanh

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

From the kitchen window the branches of
this apple tree that's trying to grow at the corner
of the shed have a luminescent pinkish glow...
Just gorgeous... :)  
Brings me an inner sense of "happiness."