"I" am LIFE...

"I" am LIFE existing here...
not a concept...

"I" am the Essence of Life
living itself out
here...

I cannot say that I am "Christine" -
nor a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu,

Sufi, Buddhist, Non-Dualist, Taoist,

or Mystic...

Mother, daughter, sister, friend,
or wife...

not a dream,
or an illusion...

"I" am simply LIFE ~ existing ~
playing all these roles...

The weight of existence
occurs when I try to
cling to an identity...

~

"I am a

f

e

a

t

h

e

r

on
the
breath of God."

Hildegard of Bingen says ~

and even the
identity of a 
"feather"

is
too
heavy

~

It's only a metaphor

~
~
~

I follow the breath
to its
Source,
the
Silence,
and
realize
I am being
breathed

~
~
~

The "task" then
is to surrender,
to
the
Infinite
Breath of
LIFE

that
"I"
am

~
~
~

Mystic Meandering
2014

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
"Explosion of Life"

Craypas oils

2012

 

The Light of Breath - Hazrat Inayat Khan

We ordinarily think of the breath as that little air that we feel
coming and going through our nostrils; but we do not think of
it as that vast current that goes through everything, that current
which comes from Consciousness...

...it is written that first the Word [or Logos - the Word of The Divine]
was, and from the Word all things came [into being].  But before
the Word was the Breath, which made the Word. 

Behind the word is the much greater power: Breath.  If a person
wishes to study the self, to know the self, what is important is
not the study of the mind, of the thought, the imagination, nor of
the body, but the study of the breath.  The Breath has made the
mind and the body for its expression.  It has made all from the
vibration to the physical atom, from the finest to the grossest.

~

Breath is a light in itself, and it becomes projected like the beam
from a searchlight...   Breath is sometimes not different from the
light of the sun but even brighter than that. Breath being a light 
from another dimension, which is unknown to science today, it
cannot be visible to the ordinary physical eyes.

What people call the aura is the light of breath, but not everyone
sees it.  A radiant countenance is a proof of an aura which
illumi-nates it, and the lack of it is the lack of light in the breath.
 A seer sees the sign of a death more clearly and longer beforehand
than a physician can.  The reason is that the seer sees in the aura
of a person whereas the physician sees only the condition of the
body.  Many experience the phenomenon of the light of breath,
and yet doubt if it can be true, for they think it is perhaps an
imagination.  Others, who are capable of seeing that light,
confirm their doubt.  The Sufi, by the development of breath,
experiences this light, which becomes for him a proof of the
existence of that dimension which is unknown to the ordinary
world.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

From:  The Philosophy of Breath
and The Healing Papers

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Just Breathing...

The silence outside the window late at night
is pungent,
leaving me rapt,
sinking more deeply
into timelessness beyond time,
letting go of thought,
just awareing the night.
being breathed by the Silence of the Unknown...

I hear the sound of the ceiling fan
breathing its own whirling rhythm...

feeling the breeze of its breath
gently move the strands of my hair...

Just breathing...

And I am suddenly gone...
slipped off the edge
into slumber
until
just
before
rising
the
next
morning

Again finding myself
at the space at the edge
before awakening,
before rising...

Just breathing

Conscious of the stillness
before thought...

Just breathing

Mystic Meandering
July 15, 2012

~

The Breath - neither mine nor yours - is the same breath
touching everyone, the same breath uniting everyone
and everything.  The same breath touching all beings,
those who are suffering, those whose lives have been
torn apart by war, those living in famine and poverty.
Immersed in this universal breath, limitlessness is
revealed as form remains...

Kathleen Knipp
Pathless Yoga

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Cosmic Breathing...

photo - Johannes-Plenio at Unsplash

Sitting in the Silence of the Inner Landscape,
I suddenly realize the Cosmic Breath of Infinity
is slowly breathing this body -
breathing in... breathing out...

Held in the pause between breaths -
I recognize that "I" am being breathed
by an unheard Rhythm...

From the Inner Window,
at the edge of Infinity
I see beyond this world,
into the formless void,
beyond moon and stars,
into the Infinite Cosmic Ocean
that holds it all...

Aware of what is aware within:
Life - breathing ITself...

Every Breath is the Primordial Breath
rippling through space...

Hush
Be Silent 
Listen

and I hear:

Entrain with the Rhythm
that is breathing you...

Slow down and breathe
the Infinite Breath of the Cosmos -
that whispers -
All will be infinitely well...

Mystic Meandering
April 12, 2020

~

Photo - Johannes Plenio at Unsplash

 

The Portal of the Ineffable...

Rendezvous with the Great Silence
through the Inner Window
of your Heart -
the portal of  "The Ineffable."

Sit quietly and listen deeply,
with no agenda or expectation,
leaving the window of your heart open -
waiting for the song of "The Sacred"...

Feel the caress of Silence begin,
like a breeze,
inviting you in
with Her gentle breath,
breathing in your Heart...

The Silence that is always there
opens HerSelf to you - always -
blessing...

Turn inward to the Inner Window,
bow to the Sacred Silence within and
enter the Cosmic Mystery,
Her endless Vastness...

Settle into the Rhythm of the Primordial Silence.
Feel the soft dance of intimacy absorb you,
in this silent rendezvous...

Nothing disturbs The Great Silence.

Nothing disturbs the depths of It.
Nothing prevents Its Song
from being sung...

Everything occurs within this Great Mystery.
All life, all breath, all death, all movement of life...

In the intimate awareness of the presence of The Sacred
know that everything is living according to Its
Natural Order, is following Its
Natural Rhythm,
the Rhythm of Life living ItSelf.,
including the life you think you have created...

All life is being lived by the Great Mystery...

All is the pulse of Silence...

The pulse of the Cosmos.

Mystic Meandering
May 2016

_/\_

~

Photo - Northern Light Swirls of an
Aurora Borealis over Yellow Knife Canada.
(sent to us by a "friend" of a "friend")

Fully Human, Fully Divine - Kathleen Knipp

Without ignoring or denying the story of our lives, we
can relax and experience that which is beyond story
through the simple practice of attuning to body and breath.
We can open the lens wider than our dramas and traumas
and reconnect with Source.

We find ourselves in our humanness, our extraordinary
fragility and our extraordinary resiliency - both.  And can,
without denying the story of "my life", the events, the
response I may be having to these events, without ignoring
that, without denying that, we can also open to that which
is beyond this story.  And it is so easy to forget, it's so easy
to have the events of our lives move into the foreground and
just fill the whole field with the dramas and traumas.  And
without ignoring or denying them, we can open the lens
wider and we can, through practice, reconnect with our Source.
It might not be easy.  We do that by beginning to feel our bodies,
feeling each part of the body and experience the sensations,
using all of our senses, while also accessing our inner sanctuary
to feel supported.

Noticing the breath and falling into the rhythmic cycling of
the breath, in a moment of suspension where we can rest.
When life presents its challenges, which it does, we can rest
in the rhythm of the breath - feel its caress.

...[there] may be the sense of slipping below the surface of
turbulence.  Sinking deeper and deeper to an absolute stillness.
Stillness so profound that it is impossible to disturb that which
is beyond time, sinking deeper to the very Source.  The Source
that reveals itself and conceals itself and emerges in infinite
forms... and begin to sense the infinite and the finite expression
as you - this unique set of patterns that form into a sense of me...

Kathleen Knipp
Excerpt from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
Fully Human, Fully Divine

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Who Is God? - Fred LaMotte

Be still and know that I am God

Who is God?  The answer comes not as thought, but as breath;
or rather, as the energy of Grace in the inhalation.  This energy
is Shakti.  Breathing Shakti is the answer to the question, who
is God?  Shakti is the Holy Spirit, the divine breath, the supreme
Mother of creation.  In ancient scriptures, whether in Chinese,
Arabic, Hebrew or Greek, the same words is used for both
breath and spirit.  And the Spirit of God is portrayed as
feminine.  Her all-mothering power of creation is God's active
energy, while God himself is the witnessing Silence, the
un-created Source.

What is the experience of God?  Not a belief, nor a remembered
image, nor an esoteric vision - for mystic visions are also
thoughts and activities of the mind [?]  But the experience of God
is simpler than any vision or arousal of imagination.  It is the pure
energy of Silence, Shakti herself...  Therefore the classic Yogic
scipture Vijnana Bhairava declares: Exhalation goes out, inhalation
comes in.  At the still point where they merge, one experiences the
state from which Creation comes forth and into which it is absrobed...

~~

"Gateh, Gateh, Para Gateh, Bodhi Svaha!

Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond.  Gone beyond the Beyond:

At some point, images get in the way, even our favorite image
of God: so we pass beyond it.  At some point words get in the
way, even the divine name: so we pass beyond it.  And at some
point, the soul itself gets in the way: so we pass beyond it.  This
is the meaning of Gateh in the great meditation mantra of Tibet.

Don't assume that this is simply an Eastern teaching.  It is also

the age-old practice of Christian Mystics.  In the early Church,
these mystics were called hesychasts, which means practitioners
of silence.  In the 7th Century, St. Hesychius of Jerusalem wrote
that the core of Christian mysticism is, "The heart's silence, 
undisturbed by any thought."

The heart's silence at first may seem like a negation, yet it is
the most positive experience possible.  For this silence is the
soul and source of creation,  the silence that was here before
God said, "Let there be light."

Fred LaMotte
Interfaith Minister

Uradiance

excerpt from his post:
"To Breathe God"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Invisible One - Nag Hammadi Scrolls

I am thought that lives in the light.
I live in everyone, and I delve into them all...
I move in every creature...

I am the invisible one in all beings...
I am the voice speaking softly...

I am the real voice... the voice from the invisible thought...

It is a mystery...  I cry out for everyone...

I hid myself in everyone, and revealed myself
within them, and every mind seeking me longs
for me...

I am she who gradually brought forth
everything...

I am the image of the invisible spirit...
The mother, the light... the virgin... the
womb, and the voice...

I put breath in all beings.

Nag Hammadi Scrolls
from: Why Religion, Elaine Pagels

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Sri Yantra necklace

 

 

Forest Wisdom - The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

One of the great discoveries of the Upanishads is The Self,
which is identical in all of us, the Life of all that lives.
Whenever we love we are really responding to The Self
within that person.  If we discover The Self in our own
consciousness, there will be no more [separateness].
This is the underlying theme of all mysticism.
Therefore, meditate on The Self - realize this
underlying Reality.

All existence - everything in the phenomenal world -
is "woven" in the Imperishable [The Self]...

From the introduction to The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
by Michael N. Nagler

~

The Self indeed is the light of man...

The Self, pure awareness, shines as the light within the heart,
surrounded by the senses...

When The Self takes on the body, [it] seems to assume
the body's frailties and limitations; but when it sheds
the body at the time of death, The Self leaves all these
behind.

...in sleep, the shining Self keeps the body alive
with the vital force of prana...

The Self is indeed Brahman [God],
but through ignorance people identify it
with the intellect, mind, senses, passions,
and the elements of earth.

...The Self freed from the body, merges in Brahman,
infinite life, eternal light.

Those who realize The Self enter into Peace...

Excerpts from The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
From - The Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran

Only Breath - Rumi

Not Christian or Jew, or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, Sufi or Zen...

Not any religion or cultural system.

I am not from the East
or the West,
not out of the ocean
or up from the ground,
not natural or ethereal,
not composed of elements at all.

"I" do not exist,
am not an entity in this world
or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve
or an origin story.

My place is the placeless,
a trace of the traceless.

Neither body or soul.

I belong to The Beloved,
have seen the two worlds as one
and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner,
only That Breath breathing
human being.

Rumi

recited by Coleman Barks

Everything Breathes Together - Mark Helprin

The universe is still and complete.  Everything that ever was, is;
everything that ever will be , is - and so on, in all possible
combinations.  Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is
in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite
astonishingly beautiful.

In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter
how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others.
All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought
together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life;
the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden
dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is
perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes
apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.

Mark Helprin
From: Winter's Tale

via - Beyond The Fields We Know

~

The stars are like letters which inscribe themselves at every
moment in the sky.  Everything in the world is full of signs.
All events are coordinated.  All things depend on each other...
Everything breathes together.

Plotinus
CE 204/5-270

~

Photo from Facebook

Entropy...

The shadows have come to roost
and
everything

is
collapsing

~
~
~

~

The tides and ripples of entropy will continue
until all is returned to Source again ~

the Primordial State:
Pure Life Energy...

Entropy is not necessarily a "bad" thing.
It is the way of Existence.

It is a telescoping of everything that is,
back to its original Source/State;
a re-homing of all that has manifested in form,
the conceptual structures,
so that only
the Eternal Essence
remains...

Do not be alarmed by the seeming destruction
of what you have believed to be real.
The false must be released, shed - like dross.
In this there is a sense of chaos, destruction, loss, and death;
the crucible affect;
a state of alchemy,
the refinement of all things in existence
to its Original Nature.

Nothing is lost in the process.

All is coming Home.

The
Divine
Out-breath
Has
Been
Re-called.

Bring your awareness to the place of Stillness within.
Don't try to create order in the chaos.
But be still and let the chaos pass.
"Order" is found in the Stillness,
in returning to deep Stillness of Being.

The healing of mankind
is in the recognition of the
Truth of our Eternal Essence -
Infinite Beingness...

Entropy is the crucible of that healing.,,

Allow it...

The invitation
is to expand our view of reality
and return to the awareness of
our Eternal Being...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
written between
2004 and 2006

~

Photo - A pan of grease blobs
zoom blurred...  :)

The Whole of the Soul - Ralph Waldo Emerson

...We live in succession, in division, in parts and particles.
Meantime, within man is the soul of the whole; the wise
silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is
equally related; the eternal one.  And this deep power in which
we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only
animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts,
is the soul...

...All goes to show, that the soul of man is not an organ, but animates
and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of
memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and
feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect or the will, but the
master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being, in
self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and 
the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object
are one.  We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the
which they lie - an immensity not possessed and that cannot be
possessed.  From within or from behind, a light shines through us
upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing,
but the light is all...

A man is a facade of a temple wherein all wisdom and good abide.
What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting
man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents
himself.  Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is,
would he let it appear through his action, would make your knees bend.
When it breathes through his intellect, it is genius; when it breathes
through his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection,
it is love...

...The soul circumscribes all things.  As I have said, it contradicts all
experience.  In like manner it abolishes time and space.  The influence
of the senses has, in most men, overpowered the mind to that degree,
that the walls of time and space have come to look real and
insurmountable; and to speak with levity of these limits is, in the world,
a sign of insanity.  Yet time and space are but inverse measures of the
force of the soul...

Ralph Waldo Emerson
From: Essay IX The Over-Soul
1841

~

Photo - South Pole Aurora

Who then is breathing? - Ilchi Lee

Observe your own body.  It breathes.
You breathe when you are asleep, when you are no longer
conscious of your own ideas of self-identity.
Who then is breathing?

The collection of information that you mistakenly think is you
is not the protagonist in this drama called the breath.  In fact,
you are not breathing; breath is naturally happening.

You can purposely end your own life, but you cannot
purposely keep your own life going.  The expression, 'my life'
is actually an oxymoron, a result of mistaken assumption...

You don't possess life; life expresses itself through you.
Your body is a flower that life let bloom,
a phenomenon created by Life.

Ilchi Lee

The Silence Calls...

Silence called me to the window again last night.
She beckoned me to come and be still,
to listen...

She waited for me to settle,
to be quiet...
Waited as I deepened
into Her Stillness...

No agenda, She whispered...

I listened...

Put everything aside and just breathe, She said.
Be aware of My Breath, breathing you...
Experience My Presence,
Feel My Fullness,
Sense the Intimacy
in every cell...

From the depths of Stillness
I heard her call again,
calling me back to HerSelf.
Like a Great Ocean pulling back
the waves on shore
back to ItSelf...
The wave giving in to the pull...

The Great Silence called
again and again;
the silent rhythmic intimacy of wave and Ocean,
one and the same...

The Silence embracing ItSelf,
knowing only
ItSelf...

The Eternal Embrace...

Come - She whispered...
Follow the pull...
Give in...
Come Home...

Mystic Meandering
Aug/Sept 2010

~

Photo: The inside of a seashell

The Divine Spot...

Breathe into the bindu of the Heart,
The Divine Spot...

Let your whole body sink into
the quiet rhythm in the space
between the in-breath
and the out-breath,
the sacred point of the cosmos
where the Divine jewel dwells;
the Ineffable, the Unknowable,
the Unspeakable
Space of Pure Being...

If you are aware, you will feel
The Presence
pouring Its
exquisite vibration
through
the Heart -
a vibration so subtle
it is barely perceptible
by the gross senses.
Felt only through the nuance of
intuition and body instinct
and attentive noticing;
a faint tingling
a calm or stillness,
joy or bliss
tickling the Heart,
reverberating throughout
the body,
as if the Heart itself is
"waking up"
inside you;
the Deeper Heart
the Spiritual Heart
the abode of Illumination.

Experience the deep contentment of
Divine Ananda
as the burden of fear
that you have carried all your life
falls away;
if only for this moment.

Feel the pure, sweet "neutrality" of
deep contentment of Being
Just Being
Just Breathing
Just Living -
from the vibration of the Heart.

Keep your "inner eyes" ever on
the Divine Spot,
The Elixir of Life...

Mystic Meandering
April 8, 2017

Only Breath - Rumi

Not Christian or Jew, or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, Sufi or Zen...

Not any religion or cultural system.

I am not from the East
or the West,
not out of the ocean

or up from the ground,
not natural or ethereal,
not composed of elements at all.

"I" do not exist,
am not an entity in this world
or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve
or any origin story.

My place is the placeless,
a trace of the traceless.

Neither body or soul.

I belong to The Beloved,
have seen the two worlds as one
and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner,
only That Breath breathing
human being.

Rumi

recited by Coleman Barks

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In some cases it doesn't even indicate that
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