Winter Sky, Duality, and Danna Faulds...

This morning I woke up thinking – as usual - feeling discouraged that it is not the Vastness of the Infinite that I experience first thing, but the mind with its thoughts.  And then it occurred to me that thinking was not really the problem.  It was my perception.  Thinking arises in the Infinite.  It is a function of the Infinite Mind.  There is no separate “thinker.”   You can’t *stop* thinking.  If we attempt to get rid of “thinking” we create duality – the mind vs the Infinite.  But the mind and thought are not separate from the Infinite, as if one is better than the other.  It is all the Infinite living Itself – even through the mind…  Thinking is not a problem.  It’s just a matter of bringing our awareness to the Presence of the Infinite Vastness within that is aware of thinking happening…

 “I am everywhere present’”

said the Infinite.
Seek me in the stately trees
or the melodies of sparrows
and you will surely find me.

Look for me in the Buddha’s smile,
the countenance of Christ,
the words of the Koran and Sanskrit prayers.
I am always there.

Turn your attention to the sky
where the movements of moon and stars
trace my beauty…

Experience true emptiness
and my presence permeates the void.
Now bring your focus closer
to your heart.
Grow still and find me within you.

Separation dissolves like salt water
when you experience your true identity as me.

From knower and perceived,
seer and seen,
from two comes One.

Practice devotion and let go into the ocean
of my love,
or be the open space from which all things arise.

One and two,
duality and union,
are both true.

So I say to you be jubilant,
and be at peace,
for inside you is the seed and fruit,
the tree and root.

Choose to be in communion with me
and see the whole of this
creation unfused with one energy…”

Danna Faulds
From: Prayer to the Infinite

 “The ordinary and the unified field

don’t just co-exist,
they coincide in the same place,
at the same time.
Divine and human
can’t be teased apart -
there is no separate thread
to pull heart from mind and soul.

There is only the unbroken chain of wholeness
forged link by link in a continuum.
What is sacred and awake is
inextricably braided into the everyday,
but we forget that we can’t dissect
the mundane from the radiant.

We lose ourselves in the rush to get
things done.

Our memory grows dim
and there is such longing.
We desperately seek something,
anything,
to plug us back into what we’ve always been,
forgetting that the disconnect is only an illusion,
easily erased in the choice to see the truth…”

Danna Faulds
From: Prayer to the Infinite

 “I was born to bridge

the pairs of opposites
to span the apparent
distance between light
and dark,
joy
and sorrow.

I exist to see past differences,
to open my arms
so wide that all
I can see and know
and be
is inside my reach.

I am here to give and receive love;
so closely attuned to All That Is
that breathing is an act
of passionate attraction.

I am not caught,
but freed by the seeming
contradictions between
seer and seen,
knower
and
unknown…

In the tidal ebb and flow
between lover and beloved
I explore the rugged
coastline of surrender…”

Danna Faulds
From: Prayers to the Infinite

Danna Faulds is a poet, writer,
practitioner and teacher
of Kripalu Yoga

~

The other morning I imagined that “i”, this ‘me”, this “self”, that I have been conditioned to *believe* is separate from the Infinite, dissolved into the vast Ocean of the Infinite, like an ice cube melting into the vast expanse of the Ocean of Existence. They are the same Essence. And  I remembered, once again, that there is really no separateness between "me" and the Infinite, even though I often live that way…  “i” is a wave of the Ocean, moving with the Ocean, as the Ocean…  Everything dissolves back into the Infinite Ocean, into one continuous movement of Infinite Consciousness from where thinking and “i” arise…  

”Become the sky…
Take an axe to the prison wall…
Walk out like someone born into color.

You’re covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side…”

Rumi

~

You might also like to read my own meditative writings

on the subject:

Primordial Presence

The Beyonce Bounce

I’m assuming that most of you have seen enough TV to know who Beyonce is… (I can’t get the little mark on the e – sorry). I am not a fan, but I have seen clips of her music videos on TV from time to time, especially the video of her doing that funny little bent over bounce movement in her leotards and high heels that became so popular when Pres. Obama was running. Anyway. What does this have to do with awareness, spirituality, Beingness you might ask… :)

Well, Sunday – still in the dumpster mind you, having awakened for the umpteenth day in a row with sadness waiting at the bedside – “we” – sadness and I – decorated the Holiday Tree. We have an artificial tree – no groans please. It is a tree that has been in my husband’s family for 42 years! We have had it for the last 15. So head elf assembled the tree as he normally does. We hung the lights together. Elf brought the decoration boxes up from the basement and I began the task of decorating – feeling a little lack-luster for the occasion.

I put a little mood music on. In this case it was Manheim Steamroller’s version of instrumental Christmas Carols. We like the non-traditional stuff. There are several songs on there that are upbeat and bouncy. I started rummaging through the larger boxes, pulling out the smaller ornament boxes, making the HUGE decision of where they should go on the tree… I noticed that “sadness” became a little less clingy, less needing my attention. Don’t know exactly where she went, but she wasn’t harping at me like she had been. So I went about the rather automatic task of pulling ornaments out of boxes, stepping back, looking at the tree, deciding where the next one should go, and then placing the ornament. No mind engagement needed here – just choose, look and place, ornament by ornament. A rhythm began to be established. Along with each ornament came the memories of who had given it and when. Sadness’ cousin grief nuzzled in with the memories of those passed on. And I thought – oh boy – here we go…

However, the next thing I knew I was – here it comes – bent over a box, deciding on the next ornament, bouncing to the beat of the music – the Beyonce Bounce! Oh my! Now you’d have to picture me. No high cut leotards and shapely legs here. No, too much dumpster diving chocolate over the last couple of months has packed on a few too many pounds – so it is sweat pants and turtle necks for me! But that’s not the point :)

In the instant of discovering that I was bouncing to the music – feeling JOY – I also became experientially aware that “I” was still also feeling sadness – in the background. I became acutely aware of the fact that “I” was capable of holding both joy and sadness at the same time! The awareness and experience of this was so incredulous that it cracked open my heart like a nutcracker cracking open a walnut, and tears and laughter flooded the living room. As I continued to bounce and emote, Elf emerged from the basement with another arm load of boxes. The look of concern on his face brought on more laughter and tears, as I’m sure that he thought that maybe tree decorating had been too challenging and sent me over the edge. Instead it brought me back to Reality: *Everything* is held in Absolute Presence – Awareness - Consciousness - at all times! Of course! Everything *is* Absolute Consciousness. Some brain cell somewhere knew this - I think – ;) But I had to experience it anew, in the moment, to *feel* it viscerally for the light of awareness to go on.

And it’s not so much that “I” was “holding” them, as that I realized that they co-exist *in* the space of Awareness/Consciousness! “They”, along with everything else we experience, co-exist there, appear there, rise and fall there from moment to moment, from experience to experience. I don’t know why this realization was such a shock to me, but it was a de-lightful “shock” of awareness that awakened the truth again in that moment – and for some reason sadness bowed her head and began to let go of her grip, like a mist lifting off the pavement after the rain. And if she returns, which I’m sure she will, I will welcome her visit again, realizing there’s nothing “wrong” in her being here. She is always free to come and go, along with all my other “visitors” that consistently show up at my door wearing different disguises. There’s always room for *all* the feelings and experiences that Life brings…

Maybe this was the “gift” waiting for me in the dumpster…