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

Trust the Presence that Holds it All - Amoda Maa

Be courageous enough to meet life from the unknown - without
a safety net, without hope, without past, and without future.

Without the hope of salvation - without running away from or
running toward anything in your mind - you are forced to fall into
an open space of Being-ness.

And in this openness, you fall out of time and out of imagination,
right into the present.

In other words, you become present - you become totally available 
to the essential Being-ness of life.

In presence, you and life have collapsed into each other - there is
no longer a "future life," it's all happening now.

In this eternal now, you and life are one - and when you are one
with what is, how can you possibly fear what is?

It's like fearing your self, and that's ridiculous - because your self,
the Being-ness that you already are, never leaves you.

Being-ness is totally dependable - it is always here.

Now you are in touch with a deeper kind of trust -  one that is 
not based on something.

It is no longer a conceptual trust, but one that is inherent in the
nature of presence.

It is inherent in the nature of life, because life is always what is
here in the present - it can't be anywhere else.

This deeper trust has no meaning to the mind, but complete
meaningfulness to your natural state [or Essence of Being].

And even if you fail, even if life leads you to a seeming dead-end,
even if you are handed an unwanted circumstance, even if you
don't get to you desired destination of perfect happiness, even
if you heart is broken open over and over again - you will still
trust the Presence that holds it all.

Amoda Maa

words I needed to hear - with thanks to Michel at 
No Minds's Land

~

Photo - Dorothea on the Beach at Sunrise

 

Under the Words - Eckhart Tolle

Underneath the surface appearances, everything is not only
connected with everything else, but also with the Source of all
life out of which it came.  Even a stone, and more easily a flower
or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to
yourself.  When you look at it or hold it and let it be without
imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder,
arises within you.  Its essence silently communicates itself to you
and reflects your own essence back to you.  This is what great
artists sense and succeed in conveying in their art.  Van Gogh
didn't say: "That's just an old chair."  He looked, and looked,
and looked.  He sensed the Being-ness of the chair.  Then he sat
in front of the canvas and took up the brush.

When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a
sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long
time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became 
possessed by thought.  A depth returns to your life.  Things
regain their newness, their freshness.  And the greatest miracle
is the experiencing of your Essential Self as prior to any words,
thoughts, mental labels, and images.  For this to happen, you
need to disentangle your sense of I, of Being-ness, from all
the things it has become entangled with, or identified with...

The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things,
people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality
becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality, the 
miracle of life that continuously unfolds within and around you.
In this way, cleverness may be gained, but wisdom is lost, and
so are joy, love, creativity, and aliveness.  They are concealed in
the still gap between the perception and the interpretation.  Of
course we have to use words and thoughts.  They have their own
beauty - but do we need to become imprisoned by them?

You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly
believing that when you have attached a word to something, you
know what it is.  The fact is: You don't know what it is.  You have
only covered up the mystery with a label.  Everything has
unfathomable depth.  But all we can perceive, experience,
think about, is the surface layer of reality.

Do you think that combinations of words could ever explain
who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even
what a tree or stone is in its depth?

Eckhart Tolle
From - A New Earth

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

What's Real? - a meandering...

Tired of the weariness of existence 
and the "games" that people play...

Lost all longing for, or any sense of devotion to 
any "spiritual" entity. All "spiritualities" seem to be just
explanations and theories about existence; all the many
theologies, dogmas, doctrines, disciplines, traditions,
religions & practices; Karma, reincarnation, and
anything else humans have come up with to try to "explain"
how it all is - "The Truth of Existence..."

Are we just another species replicating itself...
Are we a dream...
Or - Are we Source morphing ItSelf into human form...

Is it really true that our True Nature is
 kindness & compassion & love...
There seems to be an inherent ignorance of that Nature...

What makes humans believe that a "God" - any one
"God" - is "right", or "in control..." It's all the same
 "God-energy" anyway - in essence - prior to manifestations

 of a personal "God" that we choose to name...

Is it true that there is only Pure Consciousness
manifesting ItSelf in all expressions so that "IT"
can experience humanity and all the experiences 
here in this realm -
over and over and over again...

My meanderings lead me to ask: Why - why after
billions of experiences in billions of manifestations
would "IT" (Consciousness) want more of the same
experience...Why does "IT want to keep manifesting
ItSelf just to experience limited human life in its
vulnerability...  Hasn't "IT" learned enough already...

It is a belief to help explain this existence, but you have
to believe it is true...

And am tired of all beliefs and theories and explanations
that leave me empty, disconnected - spiritually disoriented...

What is there that actually reveals the "Truth of Existence..."
"Direct Experience" you say...

But we all have different experiences of that too...

And who came up with all these concepts, theories and
conjectures, that we are supposed to just believe in...
Some ancient "sage" meditating in a cave?

I do miss not having an "explanation story" to believe in,
or a "God" to believe in, but - still want to know what
the Truth really is...

Is there something in us called Essence, Pure Being, Pure
Consciousness?  And if so, why don't we know this
Beingness, this Essence that we are...

Some say we have supposedly "forgotten" - concealing
the "Truth" of who we are from ourselves...
Why would we do that...

Why do we spend a lifetime seeking for what we already are...
Like looking for your cat, thinking it might me under the chair,
when all along it's been sitting in your chair watching you
search for "it"...

You have to be invested in what you believe in;
that it's true.  Even if it isn't...

And we all believe something different...

Having hope for a "better" reality, or a "better" you -
"enlightenment"- is the universal manipulation...

On the other hand, I don't believe that there is only
this reality - "just this..."
What of mystical experiences...

And believing in God/Guru only gives us a feeling of
worthiness, rightness - or unworthiness and "wrongness";
of being loved, special - or even condemned...

It's still all about "you" -
not what's Real...

So - what is "Real..."

The proverbial existential question...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Meanderings
June 27, 2021

P.S. - All that is required to "know" the "Truth"
is to enter the deep "inner space" and discover
the Heart of our own Being for ourselves...

Or is that just a belief too :)

~

Photo from the Internet
"Time Tunnel"

 

A Deeper Intelligence - Amoda Maa

There's an intelligence that's deeper than thought
and more intimate than concept.

There's an intelligence that weaves together
the substance of your body,
the tapestry of your life,
and the majesty of your light.

It's the same intelligence that
makes the stars shine,
the planets dance,
and new suns to be born.

It's the same intelligence that
makes a bird sing,
a flea jump,
and a microbe eat up pathogens.

It's the intelligence that holds you
whilst you fall apart,
whilst you bear the unbearable,
whilst you endure the suffering of ignorance...

This intelligence has never not been here,
in the deep you.

It's just that you looked the other way.
You gave your allegiance to an imaginary intelligence,
an external authority believed to be true because
they told you so.

You ignored your true knowing for the knowledge of beliefs
force fed to you by those you thought were in power.

And those beliefs became your thoughts
and you believed those thoughts
to be your master.

But, my friend, the time has come.
The time for you to look within,
to go deeper than thought,
to turn away from imagined authority.

To become your own master...
of that which is truly alive in you...

Because, my friend, when you know the unshakability
of the openness of your true nature,
you will no longer give you power away and
you will no longer be threatened
by that which is not true.

You will irrevocably know
that there is no one and no thing that can take away
that which is your birthright... your aliveness,
the naked fact of your being-ness,
that makes life possible.

And you will live by this aliveness,
you will live by this intelligence,
you will live by the truth of your unshakable presence...
...come what may.

This, my friend, is how you
rise as truth in the face of lies.

This is how you are born into a new world
as an old one crumbles.

It is time, my friend...

Amoda Maa

with thanks to:
Dorothea Mills
Ocean Speak

~

Photo - Aurora Borealis over Yellow Knife Canada
from the internet

The Play of Perceptions - Nancy Neithercut

"Awakening" is utterly uncaused...

All trying or trying not to try merely perpetuates the illusion
of something to get or some-one to "get it."

There's nothing you can do to "get it."

There is no path, no method, no practice.

"Awakening" is not a belief or understanding.
It is not about getting rid of beliefs.

You cannot erase yourself.

It does not happen in the character [called "self/me"].

It is a shift that occurs in the brain.

The brain imagines things like gods and selves.
We try all kinds of things to join together the separate
pieces to create unity - but all trying merely perpetuates
the illusion that some-one is trying - chasing their tail.

You may have had a glimpse of the feeling that life is
just doing itself [living itself], this edgeless centerless flow,
and you will do anything to try to get it  [the feeling] back.

Yet trying merely perpetuates the illusion.

All of life always occurs by itself.

It is intuited and cannot be captured with words or knowing
in a conventional sense because it is beyond belief,
imagination or understanding - and although there may seem
to be techniques in order that you may feel this, all these
techniques do is give you the idea of it...

This recognition, this deep knowing feeling tone of
seamlessness... embraces the mind with the  most wondrous
sense of awe.

It is an unfathomable, untouchable, un-pinpoint-able edgeless
vast expanse ever emerging never done nor undone,
seamless, fleeting, momentary, without time nor non-time,
neither moving nor non-moving - that has no name or
 non-name, unknowable yet deeply felt.

There is not me, not two, not one.
All we can know is that there is an un-interrupted,
invisible symphony of what we call perception and the
simultaneous recognition of it.  It is known and felt deeply -
the pulsating aliveness vibrantly appearing as anything and
everything.

There is no separate thing called life.  You are simply
Awareness [Beingness] aware, aware through a
symphony of perceptions, the streaming of you, of me,
of we...

[This recognition] is the end of everything you held to be
true about yourself and your world, including the ideas of
truth...

Nancy Neithercut

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

"Everything is a play of perception.
Life is an ongoing exploration of this
dance of perceptions."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Mandala Art - Mystic Meandering
2013

Which do you see - a crescent moon
or a caricature profile of a baby's face ? :)

Carving out a "Path"...

Life is asking me to redefine "the path" - again - to deepen
into a "new" way of seeing, being and living.  I am
embarking on what feels like a new step into the unknown,
carving out a "path" for myself, opening to new directions,
new perspectives, new awareness.  Being open to what is
really living this Life called "me" - and - at the same time,
allowing myself to just be the way I am.  As Ramana Maharshi
said to those who were searching for the Truth of their being -
"Be as you are..."  In letting go of the need to look through a
particular "spiritual" lens, I realize how freeing it is to allow
myself to just be myself...  To not strive to know the Truth,
but to let it reveal ItSelf; to not strive to be "spiritual" or
"non-dual" - or "enlightened."  I can just be who I am  -
as that is who my true "Beingness" IS.  I don't have to be
self-conscious about using words like "I", "me", "my" - in
some kind of pseudo non-dual awareness - because...  It's all
just Beingness, pure Awareness, pure Consciousness, Source,
God, etc., expressing ItSelf.  There's no need to make a
distinction between self and Self.  It's all The Self...
Imagine that :)

I don't need to worry about whether I'm coming from the ego-
self because it's part of the whole package, part of the
wholeness that we are.  I only need to BE, and let
BEingness reveal ItSelf, express ItSelf, live Itself as "me."

It's not about "me" being "enlightened", or spiritualizing
everything, but seeing the True Nature of myself and
being authentic...

I continue to gradually shed the conceptual frameworks that
have defined and informed my "path" so far - the boxes of belief
that have tended to constrain this authentic expression of Self,
extricating my sense of self from the life dramas that have
preoccupied my mind.  This shift in consciousness may take
some time, and I don't know where I will land, realizing that
Life is truly a Sacred Adventure of just Being, and adventure
in lightness and boldness; of letting go of the sack of
insignificant items/beliefs that I've been carrying for so long...
It's a never-ending exploration...

Namaste
Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Zero - Jeannie Zandi

There is something that does not move no matter what comes,
no matter what will be lost.

I like to call it zero.  It's sitting in zero [the still point as TS Eliot
calls it].  It's sitting in Being.  It's so slow that it has stopped. And
it has a fierce fidelity to what is authentically unfolding in the
moment out of Being.  Here we stand with what's being born in
its tiny infancy, authentic and shyly showing itself, birthed from
Being.  No care for what it can be used for, where it's going, what
it means about you, me or someone else.  It simply stands without
a name, without a use, standing with that moment because it's
precious, because it's the Holy unfolding itself.

  We blow past the subtle petals of our unfolding, and
this holy birthing that's happening all the time through us.
But What emerges authentically is Holy.

In Being, we're not manipulating anything.  We're not trying
to go anywhere.  We're not trying to heal anything.  We follow
the thread of what's alive and we behold it in reverent silence,
even if every egoic hand wants to grasp it and turn it into
something.  The Holy is shining and peeking its head out...

We are not shown how to stay with the natural expression of
unfolding through us, though we were born knowing it.  As
we grew up, no one saw it, no one reflected it, stood with it,
protected it, had faith in it.....simply because it was.  We were
left in concept-land, zooming over our actual life; our own
organic unfolding.  Now we're stuck in our everyday minds
with our will trying to build something out of concept that
will never be as solid as what the Holy organically reveals.

We can stand in what emerges naturally from Being.  We
can slow down to the speed of Being, which is zero.  It has
nothing to show for itself.  It's simply a miracle as it is.
Everything that is zero is true.

It is Beingness flowing into Beingness. 
When we sit in zero [Being] there is only zero [Being],
and even what moves is still.  At some point you start to feel
 it as yourself.   It starts to wake in you...

  Stay true to the speed of Being.  Don't move unless Being
 moves [you], because you cannot leave that place and offer
anything real, and you're sick to death of ["spiritual"] manipulation
 and skipping over what's actually, purely and humbly here.

It's our zero, like a big dark hole
in the center of us that we thought was our problem. 
It's actually a portal to the Holy.  And through that empty
space of Being the Holy paints the world.

  But... we have forgotten -
how to rest as zero and stand in what's simple and authentic.
And out of fidelity to that Being [that we are], out of this
magnificent black hole, an inordinate amount of glory spills,
and each movement is the poetry of being in motion, while
utterly empty.

Jeannie Zandi

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - a mandala that my mother colored in 2016 at age 88
 digitally zoom blurred and color inverted - magic :).

Everything is Vibration - Rupert Spira & Alan Watts

There is infinite Consciousness (Beingness) shining
in each of our finite minds. The feeling of Being is
"God's" Presence shining in each of our hearts.

Self-aware Being shines in the midst of all experience.
The Isness of things is the same infinite indivisible Being.
There is only God-space.

Awareness ItSelf assumes name and form.  It begins to
vibrate within ItSelf.  Every thought is a particular
vibration of Awareness.  Awareness ItSelf vibrates
within ItSelf.

[And at some point] it ceases to assume that particular
name and form...  

[I assume he's talking about death
of the body].

Rupert Spira

~

Life is a dance of energy

The ordinary, everyday experience is the same thing
as "God" realizing its own Presence.

Experience polarizes itself as self and other -

but it's all one - like a magnet.  It's all one
magnet with different poles.

Alan Watts

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Free to Be

I am free to be...

Free to Be - just as i am...

I/i am Beingness being...
Consciousness awareing...
Self expressing ItSelf;
or whatever word you give
The Mystery...

"I" - dressed up as "me" - "me" as "I" - i/I
Formless as form,
Form as formless...

Opening to The Mystery
we are free to be our unique selves,
just as we are...

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

Everything is OM -
the hum of Life - humming -
playing in the play of Life
as i/I ~

with a multitude of other expressions of i/I
all playing in the sandbox of Life...

When we let go of the words
and the frameworks of belief and interpretations
we are free just to Be
~ as we are ~
letting go of the concepts of

i/I, I/me and "no-me"
we are
just Life - being lived
as we are.

There is something authentic
in allowing myself to be

as i/I am...

Life is met from a different space ~

the space of acceptance for all...

Play well!

Ommmmmmm

_/\_

Mystic Meandering

Meditative Writings
2011

~

Photo from a T-shirt

Free to Be - Fred LaMotte

The first discipline of non-violence is to honor every human being
as a unique soul-body, refusing to identify them by race, gender,
religion, or political party.

Yet just as much as right-wing movements, today's "progressive"
movement often promote conflict and division by labeling individual
Persons by their group identity.  Some of us who talk about "diversity"
actually stifle it, because real diversity is not to promote tribalism
[or nationalism], but to recognize the incomparable [unique]
Personhood of individuals. [As it also says in the Declaration of
Independence].

It is much easier to hate a category than a Person, whether your
animosity is toward Muslims or Christians, "black people", or
"white people", liberals or conservatives.

The beginning of world peace is to free each human soul-body from
racial, political, or religious abstractions.  Our incidental association
with a group is not who we really are.

I do not identify my Self [True Inner Being] as a color, as rich or poor.
capitalist or socialist, Republican or Democrat, Christian or
Pagan, [or American].  I am neither "good"nor "evil."  Those are just
conceptual chains with which your mind attempts to enthrall me.  But
I am not your concept of me:
you are.

If you want to superimpose a group identity on me, that is your act
of violence against the singularity of my Personhood.  You are free to
label me, but I am also free...  I refuse to identify with your label...
I Am who I Am...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

[brackets mine]

~

My note: It's an act of aggression when we impose prejudicial categories and labels on "others"; when we don't see that we are all a unique expression of our shared Core Beingness; when we've been enculturated to hate "other" people's cultures through fear because they are not like "us"...  We are all "free" when we recognize each other's Core Beingness as our own, and the diverseness of our individuality that expresses that Beingness and treat each other with respect and compassion.

And, oh btw, we are all immigrants here, unless you were born 100% Native American.  I am .2% Native American, but the rest of "me" comes from other countries, other cultures.  My English ancestors arrived here in the 1600-1700s and populated much of New England, and evidently somebody intermarried with a Native American.  My Irish and Scottish ancestors arrived probably in the 1800s and intermarried with the English ancestors, and my Norwegian ancestors arrived int he late 1800s, intermarrying with...  well you get the idea.  We are mongrels! :)  Essentially, however, we all share an Essential Beingness far beyond our ancestry, our humanness, far beyond personalities and character traits, beliefs, patriotism, opinions, DNA and intelligence.  And we are inherently Free to Be who and what we are!

And on another note:  My father was greeted by the Statue of Liberty coming back from Europe on a ship with thousands of other soldiers, (given to America by the French, btw), after serving in WWII at age 19-20 in Germany, being hit in the face with shrapnel from "enemy" mortar fire.  That was  his path, his journey, and that of his generation - to fight "the enemy" for an idealized freedom...  I don't think he (or that generation) understood things with the same "spiritual" lens that I do, but he did what he felt was right at the time, believing it was the right thing to do.  And I respect him for that, because his perceptions were different, although his war experience wounded him emotionally for life.  But he not only fought for America, he fought for the freedom of the Europeans in Northern Europe as well, and for the hope of freedom in the world... And yet we are still fighting!  Building walls instead of welcoming statues of liberty - because "we"/humanity (in general) lack the understanding of Who we all essentially are...

Namaste
_/\_

~

Photo -
via Stillness Speaks

The Shape of "self" - MM

The Infinite Beingness that we are
takes the shape of
"self" - "you"...

- like contained water -

The Source of our Essential Beingness,
whether we call it God,
Buddha Nature, Consciousness,
Non-Dual Awareness,
Great Spirit, or
Infinite Being
is like fluid light;
refracting ItSelf
in order to make ItSelf
appear in form -
as "self"...

Our Being
takes the form of matter reality;
a modulation of Its Pure Beingness,
vibrating ItSelf uniquely into
the shape of "self."

Don't be deluded by prescriptive dogmas and
doctrines of hierarchies
selling you the steps to "enlightenment."
Instead, unshape your "self" from
the conceptual overlays
that man's finite mind devised
to try to explain what IS...

And fall into the Grace of Silence...

~

Don't entrap your "self" in intellectual argumentation,
and interpretations of
Self/No-self, Duality/Non-Duality, Just This/only Now;
frameworks of distortion; 

words that tickle the mind...

Instead, let the Shapelessness of your Eternal Being
take shape within you,
let It shape you -
and feel the authentic Being that you are.
Let It form and inform your
"self"...

The "self" cannot be discarded.
It is part of the whole
of who we are.
There can be no "separation"
or denial of who we are
as the wholeness of Being,
including the "self"...

Feel into the fluidity of
your Whole Being;
the essential feeling of Being.
Let your "self" be
the Luminous Infiniteness
with its myriad expressions,
its multiplicity and diversity...

~

If only for a moment...

Love your "self"...

Be yourself - as you are

Embrace all of "you"...

As the Infinite Whole...

Mystic Meandering
Feb/Mar/Apr 2018

This poem percolated over a period of 3 months

Namaste
_/\_

The Purpose of the Journey - Joseph Campbell

The purpose of the journey is compassion.

When you have come past the pairs of opposites,
you have reached compassion.
The separateness apparent in the world is secondary.

Beyond that world of opposites is an unseen,
but experienced, unity and identity in us all.

Joseph Campbell
from The Hero's Journey

~*~

Compassion is knowing that
you are part of everyone,
and everyone is a part of you - is you.
When seeing this there is no longer judgment,
just a deeper understanding and respect
for our humanity -
a deeper compassion.

In the deep Stillness of Being
there is a deep compassion for everything that is.

There is compassion for the world
when seen as a whole - in context.
The nature of our Being is deep compassion.

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
c. 2004-2006

~

Photo - from a friend of a friend...

Seeing God's Eyes...

There is a wonderful Black woman at the Super Market where I shop.  We have chemistry.  I am drawn to her for some inexplicable reason.  Her black pool-like eyes shine and dance with aliveness and love from behind her personality.  She can be a bit of a pistol and cracks me up with her dry sense of humor.  I just love going through her line, and don’t mind waiting, so I can see those big beautiful loving eyes. I know she is a religious woman as she often mentions God. I expect an “Alleluia” out of her mouth at any time.  I do not share her religion or beliefs, but there is something in those eyes that I see whether one calls it God, The Divine, The Universe, Emptiness, Consciousness, Presence, Beingness, Allah, Brahman - or maybe just - Love…  She is not a guru, spiritual teacher, or anyone on a special “spiritual path” – just an ordinary woman who is a cashier at the market.

The other day she spotted me in her line, we gave one another a wide-eyed grin and a wave.  She finished with the person ahead of me, then pushed my carriage aside and gave me the biggest hug.  Imagine that, right there in the grocery store – as if we had been best friends forever!  A big Heart Hug.  After we embraced, while still holding onto each other, I looked into her big beautiful eyes and said “You have God’s Eyes. I can see it.”  We both almost started to cry.  Me - because I recognized something in her looking back at me.  I was looking into her True Being, seeing the reflection of True Beingness (“God”?) in her deep Being, beyond personality… Isn’t that really what we all want in an other, to see the reflection of our deepest Being, our Truest Self…

Afterwards there were few words, only silence between us; not her usual chatter and bantering humor…  She hardly said a word as she checked me out.  I worried that I had made her uncomfortable; that it was too awkward for her for me to tell her that I saw God in her eyes.  I could have said, I see love in your eyes, or you have loving eyes, but what rolled out of my mouth was “You have God’s eyes.” (like I know what that is!?)  At one point she just looked up at me and said: “I am so Loved.”  And I responded – “Yes you are.”  And we both smiled…  Isn’t that what we want the most – to know that we are truly Loved…

It doesn’t matter what one’s “religion” is.  It’s all about opening to Love.  Love shines through it all, whatever “God” one believes in, or does not believe in, or however we call that “God” - as it’s all the same “God” - the same Love shining through the Inner Being...  Who can claim “God” as their own?  Who can take a stance that “God” is only on their side?  For who is “God” anyway?  A persona that we have created?  A cosmic energy?  The Great Mystery…?  Clearly I don’t know with certainty, as my beliefs *about* “God” have changed over the years.  I only know what my experience is – and I saw “God’s” loving eyes looking back at me through the eyes of an ordinary woman at the check-out counter…

As Lydia said - “I am so loved.” 

Alleluia, Lydia, Alleluia… 

And thank you for your loving eyes…

Photo: Eye of God Mandala
Mystic Meandering
2013

At the Core of Being - A Rose...

Rosette Nebula - From: The Invisible Universe
by David Malin - copyright 1999

At the very Core of our Being
there is complete stillness,
a dynamic

Stillness
of Being
~
Just Being

There is utter awareness

of all life, all existence,
not *as* form,
but
the felt sense of the
ISness of Being ~
of Life

~
 Living

In the Silence of
this dynamic Stillness

one is aware of

 the cocooning hush
of The Mystery,
of Primordial Existence

that holds the unmanifest
in the comfort of
 Its Womb
before its birth
into
form

@

In this Stillness

the rhythmic breath
of the Cosmos
pulses like
 waves

<<>>

The originating cosmic energies
of an Alive Cosmos
generate themselves
into Existence
spiraling outward
from the
 Core ~

Like a stellar rose
that gives birth to itself
through spiraling open its petals,
 blossoming
into
time
and
space

*

All Existence is at
the Core of our Being ~
In every atom, every cell…

We are the living Cosmos…

~*~

Existence lives ItSelf,
in a perpetual unfoling of Life ~
The Core of Being birthing ItSelf
in and *as* us ~

The umanifest manifesting
the formless into form ~

At the Core of Being
 there is only

Aliveness

Stillness

Silence
Peace
Love

Life

It is who we are…

~*~

Namaste

Mystic Meandering

Meditative Writings

Feb. 12, 2015

~*~



"As a poet.....I can only gaze at the Universe
In its full, true form,
at the millions of stars
in the sky
carrying their huge harmonious
beauty -
Never breaking their rhythm,
or losing their tune.
Never deranged.
And never stumbling...

I can only gaze and see
in the sky,
the spreading layers
of a vast, radiant,
petaled rose..."

Rabindranath Tagore
from: "The Sickbed"

~*~

Divine Immersion...

“Perhaps today is not a day for answers
 and unshakable certainties.
It is a day for bird song and staying close to the questions
as thy walk us down familiar paths
on Spring mornings.”

Jeff Foster

This morning after rising I went out to leave a pie pan of birdseed for the Mourning Doves (and squirrels) who could not feed from the Finch feeder, but ate the sparse seed droppings on the ground.  The Doves cooed their familiar song in the branches above, waiting for me to bring the plate. 

I noticed a lovely shadow of a dragonfly garden ornament on the mottled grey patio and went back in to get my camera.

The morning air was gentle, quiet and soothing, an early Summer smell on the breeze drew me on to the scraggly, yet to be finished back garden across the yard…

I stood silently in the garden, aware that I was immersed in a kind of sanctity of Divine Silence.  The day noise had already begun: the highway traffic, several airplanes, and the noises of daily living: dogs, birds, voices, lawn mowers, construction noise in the distance…  A small Monarch butterfly flitted in, catching my awareness, alighting briefly, and then flitted away just as quickly, seemingly unaffected by the noises of life – immersed in the Divineness of its own Being.  Such delight I can only imagine – being immersed in one’s own Divine Being…

There is so much to be done this time of year that it sometimes drives me through my days.  I always feel like I’m trying to keep up with life! – as it is being lived…  But I don’t want to be a slave to life’s “doings”!  I’d rather stop the doings - and enjoy Life – the Divine Beingness of Life ItSelf – unaffected by the noises of life’s requirements.  I want to be “driven” by/immersed in the Divine Being that I am, allowing Inspiration to drive my day.  So everything went on hold – for today anyway - except for experiencing the Divine Rhythm of LIFE!

~ Divine Immersion ~