Living Silence - Robert Sardello

There is a Living Silence that hears the cry of the Soul.

Each of us has a companion-presence.  Something that is
always with us.  The companion-presence is Silence.
We need to nurture companionship with it [commune with it].

Silence was here before everything else, and it envelopes
everything else.  Silence is prior to sound, not the cessation
of sound.  If we drop into the quietness [within] for just a moment,
we feel the presence of Silence as an invitation.

As we accept the invitation and enter the mystery of Silence,
its presence resonates through the fibers of our flesh while
extending beyond the flesh to the deepest depths of the Soul
inwardly, and to the outermost reaches of the Cosmos
outwardly.  The inward silence of Solitude meets up with the

Great Silence of Cosmic Wisdom.  When we don't cultivate
the meeting point, we lose access to the presence
of the Silence.  Without Silence we are lost and cannot get still
enough to find our way back.

Silence bears the wholeness we are looking for...
Silence goes to the deepest depths of the Soul...

[In communion with the Silence] we feel a new attunement to
Spirit as a directly felt reality.  We have a bodily perception of
being welcomed into the vastness and fecundity of Silence. 
When we find the entry into the large stillness our lives are
irrevocably changed, a transition takes place.  The experience
comes with astonishing intimacy, that feels like the finding of
a long lost beloved.

Silence is palpable.  It's a living presence. It has a rhythm all
its own.  The currents of Silence weave polarities and opposites
and contradictions together.  Within Silence everything resonates
in true intimacy and mystery.

Our Soul connection with Silence is a form of sympathetic
resonance with the currents of Silence [the rhythm and pulsing
of Silence].  We enter into the deepest feeling of communing...

We, along with everything else, are within Silence.
We are held within a tender, loving invisible presence...
A vivid Presence of Silence...

This realm of Silence is pregnant with the ever-living Mystery.
It is the deepest feeling of communing, touched by the 
Ineffable, that keeps us intimately bound with the truth of our
Core Being, the very Essence of our Being; an interiority that
has been waiting for us.

Robert Sardello

Excerpts from: Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Remember Your Essence...

Our Essence is the same Silence that suspends the Cosmos,
and the same Energy of the Stars...
We are the Hush of "The Mystery"
and the breath of Life itself...

Our Essence is embodied in every cell of the body...

Our Being is the Dance of the Aurora Borealis
and the unlit Light of the Sun...

generated through the inner radiance
of Shakti - the primal energy -
coursing through our bodies...

Our Essence is "Godness" seeking expression...
in human form;
it is the Essence of all matter reality -
Life living us...

May we all remember our Inner Light,
our Essence...

_/\_

Blessings to all in this Sacred Season of Light...

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 16, 2023

~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

Remember Your Essence...

Our Essence is the same Silence that suspends the Cosmos,
and the same Energy of the Stars...
We are the Hush of "The Mystery"
and the breath of Life itself...

Our Essence is embodied in every cell of the body...

Our Being is the Dance of the Aurora Borealis 

and the unlit Light of the Sun...

generated through the inner radiance
of Shakti - the primal energy -
coursing through our bodies...
Our Essence is "Godness" seeking expression
in human form;
it is the Essence of all matter reality...
Life living us...

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 16, 2023

~

Blessings to all in these uncertain times
May we all remember our Inner Light,
our Essence...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

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

 

Pilgrimage - The Upanishads

Never during its pilgrimage is the human spirit completely
adrift and alone.  From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman,
[the spiritual life principle of the universe, or Soul. or Essence

inherent in the real self of the individual]...  The self-luminous.
abiding point - underlying the whirlpool of transient feelings,
emotions, and delusions...

As the sun lights the world even when clouded over, "the
Immutable" is never seen but is the Seer; it is never heard
but is the Hearer; it is never thought but is the Thinker; it is
never known but is the Knower.

The Unpanishads

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Pathless Pilgrim - a meandering...

I am a "pathless pilgrim" - and yet there is focus...
I now know I am not "called" to any particular 
"spiritual path", although I have meandered down many
over the course of my life.  I am no longer "seeking"
anything "out there" - not "God", nor even "enlightenment."
  And still, there is a sense of a "pilgrimage" of sorts; an
exploration of the Inner Landscape of "The Mystery."
Plumbing the depths of the mystery of Being within
and experiencing how that unfolds within me -
or better, how it unfolds me...

It has become a way of life actually, a continuous unfoldment,
an ongoing "returning" to the core of my Being; that silent,
still core of Being within, from which my life arises and
emerges as "me."

For what is "God" but that Eternal Essence within;
the Eternal OM of Existence - the Infinite Sound of Being;
the Emptiness that isn't empty; the Silence that isn't silent;
the Stillness that isn't still, but pulsates with The Rhythm of
Life, the Primal Energy that flows within us and through
Existence.  It is the genderless spaciousness of Primordial
Energy where there is no separation or union, just the 
Source of Being...

Mystic Meandering
Feb, 8, 2014
June 2023 - ongoing & unfolding

~

Photo from the Internet

 

The Great Suffering - A Simple Man

The Great Suffering is one of many perceptions and sensations
felt in the body, and happens simultaneously with the 
awareness of the Beauty around us - in the formless Field of
Awareness.

Everything is overlaid with acquired knowledge, and the
psychological and somatic conditioning.  The immediacy of
our experience becomes veiled, overlaid by unconscious,
reflexive conditioning.  The overlay applies to the totality of
experience and what it feels like to be alive.

The Great Suffering comes about as we learn of the darker
aspects of Nature and humankind.  The aspects of the Great
Suffering are not innate elements.  Nothing originally overlays
our Naked Essence. Can we come to an Experience of Being
that we have known before the constituents of The Great
Suffering clouded our Essence?

Our Essence is the Essential me unshrouded by all that has been
acquired over the course of a life; all that is not native to us.
It is the feeling of Aliveness.  You can feel yourself.  You can
feel the Field of Awareness Itself - which is the Feeling of
yourself...  You have to keep bringing your Attention back to
feeling yourself as the Source, which is prior to the arising of
thought...

Who then am I?

The Formless Aliveness, the Essential self , recognized and
remembered.  

Excerpts from: An Affair of the Heart
by - A Simple Man

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Re-Visioning - D.H. Lawrence & Alan Watts

What we lack is a cosmic life...
The rhythm of the cosmos is something we cannot get away
from without impoverishing our lives.  We must get back into
relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the
universe.  For the truth is, we perish for lack of fulfillment of
our greater needs, we are cut off from the great source of our
inward nourishment and renewal, which flow eternally in the
universe...

D.H. Lawrence

~

We have been brought up to identify ourselves with just the ego,
and so we ignore and are unaware of the vast, vast extent of our
Being.  People who by various methods become fully aware of
their cosmic Consciousness.....discover that the real deep, deep
Self - that which you really are [our Essence], fundamentally and
forever - is the whole of your Being.

You have to get away from all the madness for a while because
we become insane, we get confused with our roles.  Man is not
his role.  Man is deeper than that.  So, go into the forest or
someplace alone in nature, all by yourself, and find out who
you really are!  And then you no longer confuse yourself with
your particular temporary body, [or role] but identify with the
entire process of nature and the whole cosmos...

Alan Watts

~

Photo - Mandala Art - Mystic Meandering
"Windows into Infinity"

2013

 

In Difficult Times - Kathleen Knipp

Let go of the belief that 'I have to muscle this through' -
and let yourself be held...

This moment - if it could be different it would be different...

Everything changes...

Underneath the changing thoughts, emotions, beyond form
there is This - the unchanging, unspeakable Essence -
familiar as the breath - and a deep knowing that everything
is okay...  in the silence that is present, even as the soundscape
unfolds - a stillness that is present even as movement arises;
the silence and stillness that is Isness in all form...

Kathleen Knipp
gems from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
called: "A practice for difficult times"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Hidden Within...

"She" - The Primordial Energy of Life
is "hidden" within...

"She" - The Primordial One,
Sometimes conceals "Herself",
Sometimes reveals "Herself"
through you, through all of us;
as we are all expressions of "Herself"
in disguise;
however named:
"The Mystery"
"The Divine"
"Essence"
Shakti
God

Through this mystery we find
our way to Who we are -
by simply Being - ourselves -
the Natural expression of ourselves...

We recognize at the core of our Being
that we are "Her" - that Primordial Energy
disguised in a body, playing ourself...

Wonder of wonders...

Mystic Meandering
March 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Renewal - D.H. Lawrence & Alan Watts

What we lack is a cosmic life...

The rhythm of the cosmos is something we cannot get away
from without impoverishing our lives.  We must get back into
relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the
universe.  For the truth is, we perish for lack of fulfillment of
our greater needs, we are cut off from the great source of our
inward nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally
in the universe...

D.H. Lawrence

~

We have been brought up to identify ourselves with just the ego,
and so we ignore and are unaware of the vast, vast extent of our
Being.  People who by various methods become fully aware of
their cosmic Consciousness.....discover that the real deep, deep
Self - that which you really are [your Essence], fundamentally
and forever - is the whole of your Being.

You have to get away from all the madness for a while because
we become insane, we get confused with our roles.  Man is not 
his role.  Man is deeper than that.  So, go into the forest or
someplace alone in nature, all by yourself, and find our who 
you really are!  And then you no longer confuse yourself with
your particular temporary body, [or role] but identify with the
entire process of nature and the whole cosmos...

Alan Watts

with thanks to No Mind's Land for the Alan Watts quotes.

~

Photo Art - Mystic Meandering
"Windows into Infinity Mandala"
2013

 

"Wisdom Mother"...

Art: Meganne Forbes

Don't fill your head with the "voices" of others -
the so-called "teachings" of others...

Don't seek what you need in the external world
of techniques, and foolish games of
clever worldly wisdoms.

Instead, seek the company of the Innermost Essence
of your own Being - in the Silence of Being;
The True Wisdom - The Innate Wisdom;
The Inner Voice of Inherent, Intuitive Wisdom...

Trust the "Wisdom Mother" within...

Mystic Meandering
June 11, 2022

 

The Indigenous Within - Malidoma Patrice Some

The indigenous world, in trying to emulate Nature, espouses
a walk with life, a low quiet day-to-day kind of existence.  The
modern world, on the other hand, steams through life like a 
locomotive, controlled by a certain sense of careless waste
and destruction. Such life eats at the psyche and moves its
faster and faster along, as they are progressively emptied out
of their spiritual and psychic fuel.  It is here, consequently,
where one's spirit is in crisis, that speed is the yardstick by
which the crisis itself is expressed.

Any person in modern culture who is aware of this destruction
from the machine world upon the spiritual world......realizes
that there is a starvation of the soul.  And realizing that, he or
she starts to wonder what to do about it.  In places that I have
been to speak to people about the beliefs and realities of the
indigenous world, there has been a consistent number of people
who have been so touched, even profoundly shaken by what I
was telling them that I have to believe that I was not so much
appealing to their minds as I was awakening something within
their souls - something that has always been there.  This tells
me that there must be an indigenous being within each of us.

[The Buddhists call it out True Nature, Advaitins call it the Self.
Hinduism call it the Atman, or the innermost Essence.]

Malidoma Patrice Some

[brackets mine]

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

An Affair of the Heart - "A Simple Man"

A Spiritual Autobiography of a fellow traveler and Friend

Free on-line book with PDF here

From the Preface

  

You should only trust what you Know in direct experience. All
else is hearsay, concept, theory, and conjecture; the interpretations,
by others, of their experiences, after the fact.  This book is about
none of that.  I don't present an interpretation of my past experiences
or ongoing experience.  I don't hold forth a theology, cosmology, or
notion of the "Truth."  Any seeming assertions are merely questions,
cloaked in possibility.  Whatever commonalities may exist in our
mutual experience, each of our Paths is unique.  If I describe the
Path I've taken, it isn't to inform, instruct, or suggest such a Path
to you, but only to Evoke Love and Longing, to ignite the Ember
at the Heart of your Being.

the Author

~

The author calls himself "a simple man" - sharing his "spiritual
journey."  I know him as a man of depth and devotion to the path
of Love, and The Beloved.  It's an amazingly authentic story of his
"spiritual quest" from childhood on.  Leaving the walled villages
of traditional religion, to wander in the "Spiritual Wilderness", 
looking for the fulfillment of his Heart's Longing.  He experienced
the Great Sorrow and Suffering of the world and its Breathtaking
Beauty, while tasting different spiritual teachings and philosophies
along the way with various "spiritual teachers."  He relentlessly
questions all he was taught to be "true" - discovering the Perfume
of The Beloved is in the Nature of his own Essence.

His writing is honest, genuine, passionate and humble...
I found much resonance and commonality in our spiritual
experience...

An amazing story.  I loved it!
Take the journey with him!

An Affair of the Heart

~

MM

 

The Essence - a meandering

The Essence of our own Being is felt - not understood...
An animating life energy inherent in

the body system itself...

originating from within;
an innate aliveness
 that lives this body...

A mystery, The Mystery...

And also my felt experience...

And then of course the mind tries to put words
to it, to explain it, interpret it...  :)

Once I recognized it internally, it "awakened", or 
"came alive" in the body, although already there -
but made itself known , as my very own Being
 - embodied - in and through my
recognition of it.

Again, a mystery that I try with words to explain...

Although its movement is now deeply felt within,
nothing actually changes in my
human experience.

I did not become a different "person."
The "ego" didn't suddenly disappear.
Old habits of conditioning still remain -
and yet - there is this recognition of the Source
energy that mysteriously inhabits and animates this body.
Not conceptually known, but a felt movement of Being in 
the body - embodiment...

It's not even the feeling of "love" - as we know love...

It's a tangible felt sense of openness, of 
total acceptance of what is...
of whatever is unfolding in the life experience...

And what is "love" really but
the total acceptance of everything...

The Essence of Being...

_/\_

Namaste

Mystic Meandering
Jan 20, 2022

 

From Grit to Pearl - a meandering

Sitting in the Silence, the image of a pearl arose and I
remembered that a pearl is formed through irritation.
A piece of sand or grit gets in the oyster and the oyster
starts making a pearl around the irritant with layers and
layers of pearl-essence, turning and turning the grit until
it's covered with a beautiful, shiny sheen.

And of course, loving metaphor as I do, I saw the
association with the grit of life, the irritations of life, the
aggravating, challenging circumstances of life that create
multiple layers of irritation - and - the creation of a pearl.
The oyster seemingly takes this grit, without complaining,
and makes something beautiful of it...  Or is it that something
beautiful emerges from the grit of life, if we work with it,
sit with it, roll it around, not spewing it out, but allowing
it to be what it is, seeing it for what it is - the potential for
beauty...  The beauty of the pearl is a result of these layers
of irritations and aggravations of life in a seeming process of
metamorphosis...

What is revealed through the irritations is this living essence
of the pearl that in some ways created itself because of the
irritations, through the rubbing and chaffing of the grit of life...
As in - the irritation, the challenges of living are still the 
Essence, revealing Its beauty.  The irritations and challenges
of living are the living Presence emerging, or unfolding Itself,
in and through what our minds and bodies find irritating and
uncomfortable - if we give it a chance, if we stay with it,
engaging in the experiences rather than running from them.
If we learn to see the way the oyster sees :)  Ah - grit,
let's see what I can do with that...  

And what is seen is that the beauty and wisdom of the
irritations emerge over "time" it seems - or what appears
to be time - waiting to be discovered within the shell of what I
know to be "my life."  It is realized that the pearl is the culmination
of many layers of realized wisdom that are formed along the way,
from the nitty-gritty of living life as it is.

Even if we've had spontaneous awakenings to the Truth or our
Essence, it seems life continues to give us experiences that
expand the expression of that ever-unfolding Essence, of
Consciousness ItSelf, through the irritations and challenges
we face on a daily basis.  It's an ongoing emergence, realizing
that the totality of the experiences of life expands our awareness
 until it is ultimately realized that we are the Wholeness of Being
that we've been seeking - as we are - gritty as that may be...

It's a shift in perspective from grit to Pearl...

Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Essence of who you are simply exists - Rosacker

The body is a bio-organic sensing vehicle that *you*
are experiencing. It's designed to feel feelings and
have thoughts and experience emotions and have
experiences; all of which are temporary.

Everything in the physical dimension has a 
beginning, a duration, and a completion.

It is temporary...

The Essence of Being is not temporary...

There is This that you are,
that is non-physical, that remains as it is
unaltered and unharmed;
will always be eternal existing Presence.

The Essence of who you are simply exists...

You have always been This -
the continuum of existence is you,
not limited to a body.

Excerpts from "Living Practice"
a guided meditation
by Mitch Rosacker
of Self Discovery Studio

~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

Dissolve - Fred LaMotte

Rosette Nebula - From: The Invisible Universe
by David Malin

 Stars dissolve into a rose. A rose dissolves into stars. Ask Dante.

The solution is dissolution.  What dissolves?  Separateness.

I am not my skin color.  I am not my tribe.  I am not even my
gender.  I wear these veils and garments, just as I have a red
shirt or a Yankees cap on: but they are not my Self.

Nor am I my political party, my nation, or my religion.  And I
am not my ancestors.  These are marvelous incidents, but not
my Essence.  The core of my existence is prior to labels,
identifications, masks.  Yes, I enjoy wearing them, dancing in
them, playing in their forms.  I need not renounce them,
because they were never really "mine" to begin with.  In deep
meditation, these forms dissolve like the dreams they are.
Then I Am.

In deep meditation, the core of existence reveals itself as the
One who cannot be divided into races, tribes, religions, parties,
yet who plays in them all as light playing in a kaleidoscope.
The revelation transcends thought and imagination.  It is the
Self-image of the Imageless.  Groundless, brilliant, empty, it
is nowhere and everywhere.  It is the Holy of Holies.

Emerging from meditation, I need no longer look for that place.
I look from that place.  Then it is impossible to identify any
color or creed, any political or spiritual movement, as "me."
I am simply who Am.

The verb "Am" is solid as a diamond, boundless as the sky.
Who needs to say, "I Am a man, I Am a liberal, I Am a Buddhist,
I Am a white or a black?  Not I.  Just Am.  Those labels of
identity make the mind small.  No noun, no-thing, ever really
follows the verb To Be.

Fred LaMottte
Uradiance

Fixed Ideas - Zen Master Daehaeng

 Fixed ideas are like a wisp of cloud or smoke,
but nonetheless people find themselves blocked
or captured by these.

You would laugh if you saw someone tripped by
a cloud, or if someone claimed that they were
imprisoned by the air.  But, in fact, people are
endlessly being trapped by things no more
substantial than air or clouds.

They make a wall with their mind, and then it
imprisons them.  Inherently, there is no wall or
anything to trip over.  These things are mirages
they've created from thoughts they gave rise to.
Do not insist upon your own fixed ideas.

Your persistence is your own narrow mind.  If
your mind is broad, it can easily embrace the
entire world.  However, if your mind is narrow, 
even a needle cannot enter.  You have to keep
letting go of your stubbornness, and always
be deeply respectful of all life...

Learn to step out of your fixed ideas.

When we return to our Inherent Nature, which is
our most true and natural state, then the true
reality of everything is automatically revealed.

Letting go and resting - entrusting everything to your
underlying Essence/Natural State means returning
to our Fundamental Nature.

Zen Master Daehaeng
From - No River to Cross

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Vibrate the Cosmos - Saran Kauer

We vibrate on a cellular level, on an emotional level, we
vibrate in our heart beats, we vibrate as we communicate
through our voices.

We live in a vibrational Universe.

Everything that exists in the Universe has an individual
vibratory signature.  Even the planets have their unique
humming sounds as they orbit in space!  So we keep
vibrating and whatever we are a vibrational match with
will easily flow into existence.

What we manifest around us [fear, anger, hatred, love, peace]
is just a reflection of our own point of vibration.

How will you vibrate the Cosmos...

Susan Kauer

~

At its Essence everything is energy.  We are beings of energy -
the Source Energy that reverberates with each molecule,
every cell of the body.  Source Energy animates every living
being.  We thrive when our actions and interactions are
aligned with the energy that animates and sustains
[the Universe].

The energy that we encounter inside ourselves is the same
energy that guides the movement of the heavenly spheres -
the stars, the galaxies, universes.

Each living being has a characteristic profile of energy
frequencies expressed within his or her body.  Our
individual energies pulse in and out of the Sea of all
Energies...

When we tap into that confluence of energy we arise renewed,
knowing that the energies in our bodies are moving with the
harmonies of vast Cosmic Music.  There's nothing you have to
do to earn the presence of the Source Energy, for it is nothing
less than the Essence of who you are.

Joan C. King

From: The Code of Authentic Living

~

Find your resonance with the Celestial Song
in your heart - and know - we are all a tone of
Love playing our uniqueness in the chord of
Life...

MM

~

Photo - Aurora Borealis from a Calendar