Go Beyond - The Upanishads

We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses,
but what lies beyond that, if anything - a vast world, perhaps,
waiting to be explored.  Most of us are happy to stay where we
are.  We may even be afraid to venture into the unknown.

Yet there are always a few who are not content...

Simply knowing there is something unknown beyond their
reach makes them acutely restless.  This is true of adventurers -
especially those who seek to explore Consciousness [Ultimate
Reality] itself.  They quietly slip out to see what lies beyond
 the topography of Consciousness itself [that] has an
illumination of its own...

We are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our
potential as human beings.  The world of the senses is just the
base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in
[transcendent Reality] as in the world of physical reality.

It is our destiny as human beings to make this journey
ourselves.  Everything else is secondary...

Follow the path of the illumined ones...

...a familiar voice tugs at the edge of awareness...

~

The Upanishads are the recorded stories from Hindu sages
for whom the transcendent Reality called "God" was more
real than the world reported to them by their senses.  Their
purpose is not so much instruction, but inspiration -
an ecstatic snapshot of transcendent Reality.

The Upanishads tell us that there is a Reality underlying 
life which rituals cannot teach, next to which the things we
see and touch in everyday life are shadows (of the Real).

This Reality is the Essence of every created thing, and
the same Reality is our real self.  Each one of us is one
with the power that created and sustains the universe.  And
this oneness can be realized directly...  a Reality beyond
ordinary knowing...
It is the purpose for which each of us has been born...

From the Upanishads
Eknath Easwaran

excerpt from the Introduction

~

I had forgotten that I had already started this deeper
"exploration" :) back in 2019.  But there have been
so many distraction since then, that I feel called to
explore the depths of Reality again, although the
distractions weigh heavy.  Something deeper than
what I am living now calls to me - from the "edge of
awareness"...
There is always a "call" to deepen.

I want to live the true Essence of Life...

~

Photo - The Flammarion Engraving
from the internet

 

The Infinite Ocean of Spirit - Geoffrey D. Falk

We are individualized waves of consciousness on the 
Infinite Ocean of Spirit; so say the sages.

But, although the Ocean has become the wave, and the wave,
when it dissolves the illusion of ego-separation and limitation,
realizes that it has always been one with the Infinite Ocean,
the form-bound wave itself is not the Ocean.  Nor is the Ocean
merely the sum of its waves -- the Ocean can exist without the
waves, but the waves cannot exist without the Ocean.

Everything you can see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and much more,
is part of this Ocean.  For all matter, energy and consciousness is
merely waves of certain rates of vibration on the surface of the 
Ocean of Consciousness; Spirit has become, and is present in and as,
every created thing.  That is, consciousness is the "water" of the
Infinite Ocean of Spirit, and all phenomena arise as modifications of
this one stuff, or ripples on/of this Ocean of
cosmic consciousness.

Geoffrey D. Falk

The Science of the Soul:
On Consciousness and the Structure of Reality

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

No Secret of Life - Kiserian

 There is no secret of life for you to find.  It makes me smile
when you talk of finding your true nature or losing your ego
or seeing that you are not separate.  That you have no self or
know you never had a self.  I always want to ask who is it
that knows what they are not?  All your focus is on what does
not exist.  And then you say this is it, or talk of what is, or
your talk of consciousness or awareness.  Does it not seem
funny that you tell me you no longer believe in concepts and
then use a flood of concepts to tell me that?  You are like a
river saying it is finished with water.

You trade one set of concepts for another.  All because you get
a little peek into what we always saw, felt and lived. 
Not knowledge.  Not ideas.  Simply life.
It needs no name.  There is no concept that your little mind
can invent to express everything that goes far beyond our
human experience.  You are like people who love playing
word games.  You can always beat me at a word game.  You
are the masters of using words to get what you want. Even
when you say that what you want is beyond words.  If it was
really beyond words, how could you speak of it?

I am not here to say you are wrong. 
I am not playing the game with you.  

I watch you play a tug of war with words over who is saying
it the best, badmouthing others and then you say you do not judge!
I am only pointing out that when you have the need to assert
what you believe, even if you never call it a belief, you are still
not seeing what I am talking about.  For it is not seen, not even
felt in the way we think of feelings.

You are trying to use words to say what you perceive.  But the
words you use take anyone listening away from life.  You can
never get outside of life to look at life.  To say nothing is real
creates an imaginary line between real and false.  And denying
what is felt and experienced is what Western philosophers have
always done.  Do you not see yourself falling into the very same
trap?

When you say it is all love, that may be as close as you can get.
I only wonder why that is never enough for you...

Kiserian - from Kenya
speaking of the concept of Non-duality

with thanks to No Mind's Land

see videos of her speaking here

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Mind and Consciousness - Rupert Spira

There is no distinction between Essence of Mind
and the expression of mind...

There is no entity called mind in Consciousness...

Mind is the activity of Consciousness.
Thought is just the activity of Mind
in the activity of Consciousness.

Perception appears in Consciousness.
The mind is not the container.
There are thought perceptions in
Consciousness.

Thought, choice, desire, feelings are a
movement of Consciousness.

Consciousness in its naked form is empty
of thought, choice, desire, and feeling.

Rupert Spira
Non-Duality teacher

Excerpts from one of his YouTube video talks

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
 Clear Cut Glass Crystal
in a stoneware candle holder

The Upanishads - Eknath Easwaran

We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses,
but what lies beyond that, if anything - a vast world, perhaps,
waiting to be explored.  Most of us are happy to stay where
we are.  We may even be afraid to venture into the unknown.

Yet there are always a few who are not content...
Simply knowing there is something unknown beyond their
reach makes them acutely restless.  This is true of adventurers -
especially those who seek to explore Consciousness itself.
They quietly slip out to see what lies beyond - the
topography of Consciousness itself [that] has an
illumination of its own...

We are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of
our potential as human beings.  The world of the senses
is just the base camp: we are meant to be as much at home
in Consciousness as in the world of physical reality.

It is our destiny as human beings to make this journey
ourselves.  Everything else is secondary...

Follow the path of the illumined ones...

...a familiar voice tugs at the edge of awareness...

~

The Upanishads are the recorded stories from Hindu sages
for whom the transcendent  Reality called "God" was
more real than the world reported to them by their senses.
Their purpose is not so much instruction, but inspiration -
an ecstatic snapshot of transcendent Reality.

The Upanishads tell us that there is a Reality underlying
life which rituals cannot teach, next to which the things we
see and touch in everyday life are shadows (of the Real).
This Reality is the essence of every created thing, and
the same Reality is our real Self.  Each of us is one with
the power that created and sustains the universe.  And
this oneness can be realized directly...  a Reality beyond
ordinary knowing...
It is the purpose for which each of us has been born...

From - The Upanishads
Eknath Easwaran
excerpt from the Introduction

~

This is my new "exploration" :) -
although I have no desire to become a Hindu,
and may not agree or resonate with all aspects of the
belief system.  And indeed I don't want a "belief system"
to live by. I want to live the true Essence of Life.  But, I
am still curious to know how others define and experience
that Reality, and glean gems from their wisdom writings.
Am always looking for new sources of inspiration :)

~

Photo - The Flammarion Engraving
from the internet

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

Unburden Yourself - Nisargadatta

You are so accustomed to think of yourself as bodies having
consciousness that you just cannot imagine Consciousness
as having bodies...

...bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in
Consciousness.  The Ocean of Consciousness is infinite
and eternal...

You are not the body.
You are the immensity and infinity of Consciousness.

You are not the person you think yourself to be.

Trust nobody, not even yourself.  Search, find out,
remove and reject every assumption till you reach the
living waters and the rock of truth.

If you stay with the idea that you are not the body, nor
the mind, nor even their witness, but altogether beyond,
your mind will grow in clarity, your desires - in purity, your
actions - in charity and that inner distillation will take you
to another world, a world of truth and fearless love.

Leave it all behind you...
Go forth unburdened with ideas and beliefs.
Abandon all verbal structures, all relative truth...

Nisargadatta

~

Re-examine all you have been told.
Dismiss what insults your soul...

Walt Whitman

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
digitally altered

The Hush of "The Mystery"

The Hushhhh of "The Mystery"
silently moves through time and form...
Life living ItSelf...

Can you feel it? -
this hush of Silence that moves through you,
even when you are not trying to...

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

It waits for you - to stop - and listen -

to sense Its Presence...

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

Succumb
to what awaits you
in
The Silence of "The Mystery" ~

Love's Illumination

_/\_

Mystic Meandering

2013

~

I use the term "The Mystery" here,
but one can call it" The Infinite, the Unknown,
the Ineffable, Consciousness, Pure Awareness,
The Unamable, The Beloved, and of course,
God...

~

"The Mystery" is Life ItSelf, ever unfolding,
ever revealing ItSelf. We are always in a state of
discovering "The Mystery" and what IT reveals to us -
ongoingly.  What IT offers each of us is unique,
yet universal; speaking directly to our Hearts...

When I speak of "The Mystery"
it is always from my own *experiences* of it,
for I am acutely aware that I *know* nothing
*about* "The Mystery", only how "The Mystery"
reveals ItSelf to me...

Namaste

~

Photo - A glass sphere in glass floral pebbles
back lit from underneath

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

To Let the Light In - James George

What I'm coming to lately is an end-of-life conviction that
there is more to consciousness than what is produced in my
little head, or yours.  Both of us have the capacity, at times,
mysteriously, to get beyond whatever this small
consciousness is doing and telling us.  When we are able,
when we are sufficiently still and relaxed - letting it happen,
not doing it - we can receive a resonance from a greater
Consciousness.

...am I open to something that could be quite new, that is not
really coming so much from me as from this 'source consciousness'
that many traditions have called "I"?

I'm referring to the consciousness that manages to see what
things are, what I am, and to not get caught in the next reaction
or judgment or association - because all of these are functions;
and Consciousness is not a function.

Interviewer: When I experience an echo or hint of that
Consciousness, there's a distinct experience that something can
move through me.  And I even begin to feel impotent without
that sense of connection to a greater knowing.

JG: I think our entire culture has been rendered impotent by its
disconnection from that Consciousness, from anything that
we could really call sacred.

Without being in love with Consciousness, we can't reach it.
and it can't reach us while we're preoccupied with all that is
going on in our ordinary thought, our ordinary bodily habits,
sensations, movements, and our ordinary emotional reactions.
These are what I am calling functions.

It's as if we have two natures: a functional nature and what
many people have been calling a "spiritual nature" or soul.
But the language is suspect these days because we have been
so careful the last couple of centuries to separate from the
superstitions of the past that we have involuntarily cut
ourselves off from the sacred...

Like you, I am searching for who I am, and by now I know I am
not going to find an answer in my functional machinery, ticking
away automatically, but in my essential mind, just aware attention...

It is so important to understand awareness as a connector to
something greater than me, to my source, really.  My presence
is the doorway to that, even at the moment that I acknowledge that
I don't know who I am and see I my lack of presence.  But that is the
beginning of a real wish for it, a wish to Be...

And when I have that wish, then maybe something can reach me
that is of an absolutely different quality.  I may perceive it as an
axis of Light running down my physical body, which has a
different origin.

We have such resistance to even the theoretical idea that we
could, right now, be breathing an air charged with omnipresence
of Consciousness, the omniscience of Consciousness.  We've all
had, perhaps rarely, a direct experience of a moment when I knew
everything at once and I was aware, not just of what I'm calling
this present moment, but of past, present, future as one eternity.

These are just words at this moment.  But I remember it wasn't
just a word, it was a flash of light, of electricity from the top of
my head to my toes.  And it changed something in my cellular
structure that persists today.  I feel that now.

We really need to see ourselves as we are - not trying to change
anything...  How do I include all of me: mind, body, feeling?  All
the functions have to be integrated.  It's not a search to escape
from this altogether wonderful system of functions...

For a moment, stop thinking, start sensing and feeling, so as to
integrate all the parts.

When the mind becomes aware, there is clarity,  When the body
becomes aware, there is the sensation of life.  And when the
feelings become aware, there is the presence of Love.

So I let go, sense and listen, until something relaxes enough to
let the light in from a crack in my shell...

It's not a mental conception, but a deeper conviction that could
draw everything and everyone together...

James George
Excerpts from: To Let the Light In, A Conversation with
James George
in Parabola Magazine
To read the whole article click here.

James George is a retired Canadian Diplomat who served as
High Commissioner to India, and Ambassador to Nepal and Iran.
He has known many important spiritual teachers of the 20th century.

~

Photo - Light coming through the fingers of my hands
held together.  Photo turned on its side.

What Remains After Death...

I seem to be drawn to the topic of "death" lately - especially after watching this creative you tube video called "The Life of Death", which really impacted me.  Not in a morbid way, but in opening the door to bring awareness to the reality of "my" mortality - the certainty of exiting life as "i" know it... It left me feeling that death is really always with us.  It's right here - part of life. We know this, but we often avoid the idea.  But what really happens when we die...  Does this thing we call "consciousness" really "go on"?  What's left, if anything...  Is there truly a Greater Cosmic Beingness in which we are absorbed after physicality is gone?

My personal belief has been that our personal identity as a human being does not "go on" - that is, the "ego"/personality does not...  My belief has been that this "i"-wave called "christine" does not go on as christine, but dissolves into the Greater Ocean of Beingness - that famous analogy of the wave receding back into the Ocean...  But do I believe that because I like that scenario over others?  And will "i" know this is happening?  Will there be awareness?  I don't know...  Who really knows...  Just meandering here...

My father died in the early morning hours before dawn - we think - sitting in his chair in the living room.  He evidently couldn't sleep and had gotten up sometime in the middle of the night to sit in his chair.  My mother was still asleep in bed, and told the story later that Dad had come to her in what she thought was a dream and said: "Skip, I just died."  When she awoke at 5 am, he was not in bed.  She got up and found him dead in his chair.  Now some may call this woo-woo stuff, but...  who knows! Was my father aware of his death?  How exciting!  Did his consciousness go on, able to communicate somehow with my mother? And if so, how long did his consciousness linger...  Is this "dissolving" a gradual thing...  The Buddhists believe that one goes through what they call a Bardo period of "traveling" after death for something like 30 days or more.  But how do they know this? My father had had a near death experience several years before his actual death, in which his heart stopped after open heart surgery and he was "clinically" dead for a few minutes...  But was *he* "gone"?  Evidently not, as "he" was revived, and reported to us that he was now not afraid of death because his experience of dying, which he believed to be real, was peaceful.  There was something there that experienced "peace."  Fascinating...

My grandmother died in the hospital, having fallen and hitting her head, creating a blood clot under her skull requiring surgery.  After several days the decision was made to remove all life support because she was not improving...  I was not present when she died, but upon entering the room a half hour later, or so, I was gifted with an intensely tangible presence of Love that I have never experienced before, nor since.  It was like a warm presence that absolutely engulfed the room...  What was this!?  It was not the love I had for my grandmother, nor her's for me, but a greater Love.  

I realize now that it is this Greater Love that absorbs us, is what remains and "goes on."  Whether "we" retain anything of consciousness or the personal self remains a mystery.

In death and beyond there is only Infinite Love...

~*~

Photo -Imprint of a bird and wings in the snow

Beyond/Behind Mind - Nisargadatta & Wu Hsin

The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there

is the background of awareness, which does not change.

The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and

cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun

during solar eclipse.

What you need

is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and

consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness.

Look at it this way. The mind produces thoughts ceaselessly,

even when you do not look at them. When you know what is

going on in your mind, you call it consciousness. This is your

waking state—your consciousness shifts from sensation to

sensation, from perception to perception, from idea to
 idea, in endless succession. Then comes awareness,
the direct insight into the whole of consciousness,
 the totality of the mind. The mind is like a river,
 flowing ceaselessly in the bed of the body;

you identify yourself for a moment with some
particular ripple and call it: 'my thought’. All you are conscious of is your mind;

awareness is the cognizance of
 consciousness
 as a whole.

Our minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness.
 As waves they come and go.
 As ocean they are infinite and eternal.

 Know yourself as the Ocean of Being,
the womb of all existence.
These are all metaphors of course;
 the reality is beyond description.

You can know it only by being it."

Nisargadatta 

Via: No Mind’s Land

Awareness is primordial;
it is the original state of
Pure Potentiality.
It is beginningless and endless…

Go behind all perceptions, conceptions
and ideas to that which is aware…

Free your self from preoccupation
with names and forms
and see what remains...

No Source of illumination is
required in order to see the sun.
One simply turns toward it and
rests in the attention of it.
How can you expect to
see the sun if your
attention is
fixated
elsewhere?

The peace you seek
is where you are.
Merely stop masking
it with thought.

Wu Hsin
Excerpts from

Behind the Mind:

The Short Discourses
of Wu Hsin

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

The Call to Silence...

Stepping over the threshold of another year (in time only J) I am feeling a call to Inner Silence even more strongly than usual - for the past few days especially, but even before that…  It is a call to Meditative Silence, a deep Cosmic kind of Silence that is the ground of our Being that permeates us all – and connects us all.  Spending time in deep Silence opens all the “channels” within to a deeper awareness of the Eternal Beingness that we all are…

I have not been honoring this call to Meditative Silence in the past year as much as I need to, living mostly on the surface of life much of the time, driven by life’s demands.  So I am re-committing myself to the deeper Rhythm of the Great Ocean of Silence within.  An illness this last month has given me the opportunity.  I start the morning before rising with a breath meditation, breathing into the Hara/Lower Dantian, following the movement of the silent Chi that flows through my body. I feel its expansiveness and its strength as I lay there.   Then I rise, and schlep downstairs to my chair at the window, if I don’t get distracted by blogging, emails, hubby or house. J

I quietly sit, following the breath again, bringing awareness to a deeper space of Silence within, until I am aware of what is Aware in me – the pure Awareness that just IS.  Deep Silence opens this field of Awareness beyond form. It is from this deep space of Silence that all life, all creativity, all expressions of Being - including “longing” and this sense of “me”, arise – and is where the Truth of Existence lies…

I know that many who are committed to the Truth of Being are feeling it too – this call to Meditative Silence – this need to commit to something deeper in our selves and in our lives – to dedicate ourselves to the ground of Being, whether we call it Silence, God, Emptiness, Consciousness, Love, or Truth. 

A call to Silence is a call hOMe…

May we all have a year of transformative Silence in our Inner Sanctuaries…

Giving birth to an open Heart…

“Listen with your Chi

Be open
Open Awareness takes over
letting everything come and go,
letting Reality flow in…

Give up your attachment to your self -
the constructed self.
Surrender to the inevitable
movement of The Way…”

Edward Slingerland
Professor of Asian Studies
University of British Columbia
Canada

Top Photo:  This wintry scene was created from frost formed on
 the window pane that was covered on the inside with a piece o
vellum.  The vellum has stars embossed on it. 

It's snowing stars!
The shadow of the frosty image was projected onto the back
of the vellum against the window by the afternoon sun.

The “woods” in the background are actually streaks on the window! :)

You can also see what looks like a pond in the middle.
It’s magic!

Empty Cups...

Experiencing spiritual confusion recently, I asked for guidance.  “Spirit” pointed me to “Emptiness.”  The word E-m-p-t-i-n-e-s-s floated through my awareness like a whisper, as if gently calling me to listen, to “see”, to touch, and to experience IT – this “Emptiness.”  I was drawn in to the *space* of Divine Emptiness within.

Amazingly I found articles and posts on Emptiness, on Consciousness, and on Awareness (which many consider one and the same).   Then I spontaneously posted the post about Cups in the Ocean, finding the poems by Rumi once again. And my post on SteppingInto The Stream is in many ways about discovering that wondrous space of Emptiness through letting go.  While decluttering the book cases a couple of weekends ago I re-discovered Adyashanti’s book, Emptiness Dancing, which I have just started re-reading.  And then Fred LaMotte posted this lovely piece recently on the Fullness of Emptiness…  Obviously there was something I was supposed to see about “Emptiness…”

When the word and internal *feeling* of Emptiness first wafted through, it was so powerful that I started taking empty cups from my cupboard and setting them out on their sides in places where I knew I would see them, as reminders of this wondrous sense of Emptiness - our original Nature; the Formlessness within Form analogy.

I experienced this Emptiness as endless spacious openness, unconfined, not having a bottom like a cup, but somehow the symbolism of the empty cup spoke to me, allowing me to recognize the Emptiness as our original Eternal Nature – the still-point of Consciousness ItSelf.   What we *think* we are - this ego, this personality, this identity, this mind, this thought, this emotion, this body, are basically empty forms, filled with Emptiness (Formless Awareness/Consciousness).  It is not the same gutted emptiness that one feels after loss, or trauma. Not “emptiness” in the sense of being a void, devoid of life, but a dynamic, yet subtle vibration of Aliveness, aware, knowing Emptiness that is viscerally felt as an alive, peaceful FULLness . 

When I would turn my awareness inward to this space of Emptiness I felt a profound quietness, a deep presence of Being, a re-orientation of my perspective.  But I also had the sense that through this re-orienting “I” was being “emptied out,” of my orientation to my habituated patterns of mental conditioning as a way of living, the conditioned mental frameworks, as well as deeply buried emotional issues that continue to run deep and rise often, along with the ego-centered way of seeing the world that wants to hang on.  It is like being emptied of all that is not Essential, which of course creates upheaval, and can and has sent me into anxiety and bouts of depression recently.  The ego becomes so emotionally attached to its ideas and beliefs of the way our life should happen, that it resists letting go.  In this process, however, I got the image that the “me” that I *think* I am, that I have become attached to, is an empty cup in the vast Ocean of Pure Consciousness – being dissolved into that Ocean, so that I may remember that *essentially* I am the Ocean. 

In some ways this does leave a kind of gutted feeling because the ego-self resists this emptying, as the orientation *begins* to shift from the “me/ego-self” to our Essential Nature - before the sense of a separate “me.”   The familiar identity known as Christine is being emptied out – present tense – ongoing – little by little - through a process of awareness and surrender – through continually bringing my awareness to this space of Emptiness, *feeling* it, the true Emptiness; seeing that these “ego forms” that we believe we are, are really just empty cups filled with this wondrous space of Aware Consciousness, or Emptiness, unattached to ego, or mind, or thought, or feeling – just the conscious Isness of Being.

How interesting the many varied ways in which we are each shown the wondrous mystery of our True Nature…  Shown that the process of “awakening” to the Truth of our Existence is ever-unfolding, each in our own way…

As a result, I realized recently that I no longer *know* what I *thought* I knew, as my perceptions of Truth have evolved.  In this space of Divine Emptiness what I *thought* was important to say, isn’t, because there is really nothing left to say…

Namaste…

Stepping Into The Stream...

About a month or so ago the phrase “stepping into the stream” came to me, and the question – what if I just stepped into the middle of the stream and let go – figuratively speaking.  The insight that came with this was that it meant letting go of the shore of course, not just the one side, but *both* sides.  And that it was not about going from one shore to the other, not about crossing the river/stream, but about letting go of both sides and just being *in* the stream – the Cosmic Stream of Pure Consciousness, the stream of Eternal Beingness – allowing the internal flow of that to take me. I began to understand that what was required was a total immersion in “Divine Consciousness” – a total surrender; a total bowing – not my will but thine kind of bowing.

The letting go was about loosening my grip on *my* hold on life, my take on life, if you will - letting go of holding on to the physical world, the mental constructs of what *seems* to be true that keeps me holding on to the edges.  Buddhists would call it letting go of the attachments we hold onto, the identities, the roles, the beliefs that we have taken on and are attached to – that we *think* gives us a sense of security, stability, permanence, even “spirituality” – but that really keeps us holding on to the edges of the true Living Stream of Divine Consciousness.

In metaphorically “stepping” into this Stream, which is another way of saying becoming more deeply *aware* of what is really Aware within us, becoming conscious of the vast Consciousness that we are, we have to let go of our *identification* with our small self dramas - allowing the Cosmic Stream of Consciousness to take us, absorb us into ItSelf.  By consciously “stepping” into this Stream, turning my awareness towards the Infinite, I am saying that I am willing to let go of my attachments.  I am willing to surrender who I *think* I am to the seamless Divine Flow, trusting that as I step more deeply into the River/Stream, it will dissolve all my ideas and illusions about being a separate self from the Ocean of Consciousness that I/we actually am/are.  This will continue to be the step for me, to knowingly step into this Current and *trust* the River – the Divine Stream of Life – The Mystery of Divine Consciousness, and move in ITs Way more fully.

It’s a lot easier writing *about* this than actually stepping into the Stream and letting go – letting myself just rest in the silent awareness of the vast field of Consciousness that we truly are, which is not affected by our thoughts, feelings, emotions, ambitions, or life circumstances that are happening to us personally – or in the world for that matter.  Ultimately, everything is allowed and everything collapses back into the silent stillpoint of vast Consciousness – while IT remains undisturbed.  But we need to experience this for ourselves, to consciously *feel* what it’s like to step into the Stream of this vastness of awake, knowing Awareness within – the living Consciousness – and see where it goes.  It’s a continuous, ongoing step taken moment to moment…

Photo: Sunrise on Merrymeeting Lake, NH

Taken by my brother 2009