Rest Your Heart in Love - Fred LaMotte

The purest meditation is just to rest in Love...

Our love is often toward what we know to be God.
The "toward" of love is like an in-coming or out-going breath.
Its flow may proceed from my heart toward the Divine,
or from the Divine toward my heart,
until the two tides equalize in one serenity;
the silence between breaths... inhalation kisses exhalation.

Words cease.
Prayer becomes deep meditation,
and there is no more "toward"...
It is effortless repose through love, as love...

Just be with the formless feeling.
The little thread of formless love expands to fill the cosmos,
because it has no boundary, no image.
In a moment, you have captured the ocean of love
in the cup of the heart.

The tiniest thread, the faintest impulse of love,
is a breath of the Cosmic Mother,
felt as a sense of the heart.

Surrender to that subtle intuitive sensation,
without attaching any picture or face.
This ripple of affection will lead you to the sea.
Depth calleth unto depth.
In the formless abyss of love, one depth touches another.
The depth of God merges with the depth of You.

If images of an Avatar or a Master appear, let them.
They are delightful bubbles playing on the surface of
love's formless ocean.
They are all facets of one diamond,
the brilliance of your divine heart.
Your heart is a little hologram that contains the cosmos,
the forms of every Avatar, every God or Goddess.

Whatever sadhana we practice, just rest in the heart,
filling the empty silence where thought used to be.
This silent glory is the substance of creation itself,
suffusing every cell of the body.

Then it pours out through our eyes, our words, and our hands
in blessing...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Excerpts from a blog post.
Fred's words, my format.

~

Art - Mystic Meandering

 

Primordial Love...

The Love that emerges within us
when the Inner Sanctuary opens ~

Just Is...

Just Loves

Love ~ Loving

A causeless Love

Beyond space and time

My first felt experience of It
left me in awe
of Its Vastness...
Its Clarity...
Its Lovingness...

This Love doesn't love
"because of"...
It Loves without reason...

It is Primordial Love ~

Unconditioned
Uncontrived
Untouched

It loves "just because",
because It IS Love...

Love beyond comprehension...
Love beyond what we think is "love"...

How could one possibly
comprehend the
limitless,
unbounded,
uncontained
Love
that
Just
IS

~

~

~

Effluent Love
flowing from Itself

Endlessly

~
~
~

It is not an object called "love"
or an attribute that "I"
can achieve or attain...

But is the pure,
perpetual

GLOW

of Effulgent Primordial Love

Self-sustaining, self-generating
Brilliance

from
the Heart of Hearts

L~O~V~E

Mystic Meandering

2015

~

Photo - Aurora Borealis from a calendar

 

 

Love Rises...

 

Love Rises...

Unsought... Unintended...
Surprising me with its soft
dancing vibration in the
hollow of my chest...

Love Rises...

A Mystical Energy....
Unbidden... Uncreated...

Hidden within
this caged Heart...

Love Rises...

Surrounding the wounded heart...
An unexpected presence,
vibrating quietly like a
breeze flutters leaves...

Love Rises...

Revealing Itself...
Emerging from the depths
of The Silence within...
Of Its own accord,
In Its own time,
In Its own way...

When I'm not looking...

Love Rises...

Gently brushing my Heart open,
moving me to tears...

The Mystery of Love:

Love Rises...

From within...

No matter how dark
our life circumstances;
how broken society is...

Love Rises...

Mystic Meandering
July 16, 2022

~

Photo taken by my husband on 
the Full Moon July 2022

The Cosmic Symphony...

The Cosmos plays a continuous symphony of Silence
that only Inner Stillness can hear...
We have forgotten the music of the
Celestial Songs
that sound the stellar light language of 
Love ~

Our remembrance lies hidden deep in
the cave of the Heart - untouched...
The unspoken language of the Heart
longs to be opened - awakened...
The dormant vibration calls to us,
to resonate with the tones of Creation
in the Space of Silence ~

Listen deeply and hear the
Celestial Symphony
within the Stillness
of the Heart ~

Follow the cosmic waves,
the pulsing sound of Life,
into the Vastness 
of Being ~

Find your own resonance
with The Rhythm
in your Heart ~

~ and know ~

We are all a tone of Love
playing our uniqueness in the
Chord of Life,
reverberating with the
Sound of Source ~

Mystic Meandering
August 1, 2001

~

Photo from the James Webb Telescope

 

"Spiritual Teachers" - Jeff Foster

'Spiritual teachers' [of certain traditions] often talk of pure
Awareness that doesn't suffer, a formless consciousness
untouched by form...

They speak of a state in which anger, fear, confusion and doubt
do not arise.  Or if they do it's a 'sign' that we are 'not there yet.'

How ironic, a non-dual teaching that is deeply dualistic at its core,
and deeply shaming of our vulnerable humanity,
and deeply, deeply unconscious of this.

What kind of 'Oneness' does not radically include all of her forms?
What kind of ocean does not embrace, and infuse, every single one
of its precious waves?

'Spiritual teachers' tell us that there is no goal, nothing to attain,
and they are not special in any way.

Yet - in the same breath, they speak of the 'falling away' of the
'separate self'', the sudden or gradual 'death of the ego', the
silencing of their mind, and how they achieved states of
permanent bliss, peace and equanimity.

They speak of non-judgmental love, yet judge and guilt-trip
and correct their students for having fears, doubts, annoying
questions and... resistance!  They make their students doubt
their own experience.  They claim to be 'enlightened', yet
judge others as not being 'enlightened.'

They identify themselves as having lost their separate self,

yet speak of having no identity at all....

The mind is an addict.  It is desperate for somewhere to land.
Some certainty. Some dogma. Some 'true teaching'.  The mind
will addict itself to even the most beautiful, refined,
spiritual concepts:
'I am pure Awareness.'
'I am not the body.'
'There is no separate self.'
'It's all an illusion.'

Avoiding the tender, moment-by-moment embrace of our
fragile, fleshy, muddy, messy humanness.

Our confusion is clearly lovable.Our doubts are certainly sacred.
Our longings, aches and wounds are not signs that we haven't
 reached the correct state, or that we are far from the Promised Land.
They are holy sites in us themselves, expressions of the
One Life that cannot be uttered.

There are no experts, no 'enlightened' ones,
no authorities...

Just willingness to not know.
To begin again.  And again.
To soften into the grieving heart...

The broken heart is holy.

I reject any spirituality that cannot see the grace in that.

I reject any spirituality that doesn't allow us to be fully human.

If "spiritual teacher" means someone who sees the 'fierce grace'
in the pits of suffering, and the unspeakable beauty in our
wounded and tender places, and the non-duality shining brightly
in the damn chaos, and the ever-present existence of a Love so
vast, it cannot be understood by mind - a Love that loves our
imperfections and mistakes, and embraces them in loving
awareness in each and every moment of our lives -
then sign me up!

Jeff Foster
Former Non-Dual "Spiritual Teacher"
Excerpt from - "Why I Resigned As A "Spiritual Teacher"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Primordial Love...

The Love that emerges from the Heart
when that Inner Sanctuary opens ~

Just Is...

Just Loves

Love ~ loving

A causeless Love

My first glimpse left me in awe
of its Vastness...
its Clarity...

its Lovingness...

This Love doesn't love
"because of"...

It loves without reason...

It is Primordial Love ~
Unconditioned

Untouched

It loves "just because" ~

because it IS Love...

Love beyond comprehension...
Love beyond "love"...

How could one possibly
comprehend the
limitless,

unbounded,
uncontained
Love
that

just

IS

~

~

~

Effluent Love
flowing from ItSelf

Endlessly
~
~
~

It is not an object called "love"
or an attribute that "I"
can achieve or attain...

But is the pure,
perpetual

GLOW

of

Effulgent Primordial Love

Self-sustaining, self-generating
 Brilliance
from
the Heart of Hearts

L~O~V~E

Mystic Meandering
2015

~

Photo Aurora Borealis from a calendar

The Heart's Longing...

It's your destiny to be Love...
The only "purpose" is to BE - Love.

Rest in the Sacred Silence of the Heart
where the ripples of luminescent Love
form and expand...

It is already there in your Heart -
in the core of your Being.

Love is your sanctuary.

The longing of the Heart
is there to
draw
you
in

.

.

.

It's the longing of the Heart for that which is
True,
Pure, Innocent, Whole,
and Alive
within

you

It's the longing for the Embrace of
"The Beloved."

And...

It's the call of "The Beloved;"
pulling at your Heart.

Follow the call...

The longing is your Innocence;
an innocent longing
for Divine Embrace.

Let that innocent longing carry you Home...
To the Heart of "The Beloved."

You are held there - deep within
the Divine Heart...

Thrive in that Embrace.

That is Love...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
c. 2004-2006

~

Photo/Art - Mystic Meandering

Waking Up to Bliss...

I woke this morning surprised by Bliss...

It was just there -
undisturbed by my mind...

Just this Bliss
bubbling up through me.

There was only Openness...
with/about life...

And there was Gratitude,
that apparently comes with Bliss...

Gratitude for my bed, my pillows,
for the sheets, and the body "I" inhabit,
that struggles so often...

I woke this morning feeling FREE...

Not free from anything -
just Freeness - unencumbered...

I was Freeness ItSelf...

And there was LOVE...
As if I could reach out to everyone with my Heart,
and just Love them!

It was a natural, organic urge for love and kindness
that rose from somewhere inside...

I woke this morning feeling - JOY!~

Quiet Joy...
Internal Joy...

I did not conjure up any of these...
I did not meditate on them,
or "practice" them...

They were already here...

They just happened!

I was graced - unexpectedly
when I wasn't looking for them...

I didn't want to lose this -
this Bliss, this gratitude,
this joy and love for life;
this unfettered Freeness.
So I just lay there...
basking in Bliss -
until it left, just as it came...

It was all inside;
not happening TO me,
but was taking place inside me...
It had nothing to do with me at all!
Something was coming alive within...

Was this "The Kiss of The Mystery"?
Most assuredly...
unbidden...

This realization arose from the Silence of Bliss:
One cannot "Awaken" one's self.
One's self does not "Awaken" - but
Something inside us
Opens
for no apparent reason,
spontaneously...

and creates in us a new way of seeing and being
in the world...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 7, 2020

~

Photo - Mandala Art
Mystic Meandering

Every word of every tongue - Fakhruddin Iraqi

Every word of every tongue is
Love,
telling a story to her own ears.
Every thought in every mind,
She whispers a secret to her own Self.
Every vision in every eye,
She shows her beauty to her own sight.
Every smile on her face,
She reveals her own joy for herself to enjoy.

Love courses through everything,
no, Love is everything.
How can you say, there is no love,
when nothing but Love exists?

All that you see has appeared because of Love.
All shines from Love,
All pulses from Love,
All flows from Love -
No, once again, all IS Love!

Fakhruddin Iraqi

Sufi Poet
He was actually from a region in Iran
called Iraqi

via Poetry Chaikhana

~

Don't take your joys and suffering personally.
We are - all of us - stories
told by God
to him/herself
to illuminate him/herself.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~

...how exhausting it is to always find fault!

Love knows that nothing is ever needed
but more Love...

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

~

Photo - Mandala Art
digitally altered
2013

The Golden Thread...

I have conversed with the Universe,
commiserated and cogitated;
ascended, descended;
polarized, conceptualized and spiritualized;
dis-membered and re-membered ~
and still I find no "plan" ~

Only Vastness and immensity
beyond theory, framework and perception.
The Greatest, Grandest Mystery
in an ever unfolding nebula;
procreating itself in billowy clouds
and golden streams of stardust in a
beginningless infinity.

A golden thread weaving through space,
through the Silence beyond creation,
through Sound beyond sound,
and Light beyond light.

Matchlessly weaving its Eternal Vibration
through timelessness,
into time, and space beyond time,
with one theme braided into its
unending spiral
through
dimensions, distortions, dysfunctions -

~ Love ~

From this divine, mysterious weave of Love
we live our reality,
and dance the dance of duality:
our light and our dark.
One thread within the
Cosmic Fabric...

Held by Love...

Mystic Meandering
1999

~

Article about the above photo, The Golden Bridge
built in Vietnam

I will not hear my mother's voice again...

I will not hear my mother's voice again - or see the recognition
in her eyes when she was surprised to see me at her bedside;
or see her lift her head up from the pillow, her index finger
pointed into the air, as I was on my way out her bedroom door,
saying "I love you" - as if to remind me for the last time.
And my reply: "I love you too!" - pausing to look back...

I will not "know" my mother anymore - in form - although her
Spirit Essence lives on somewhere now; a comforting feeling,
no matter what one's beliefs are about what happens after death.

That's the thing I learned through my mother's 3 month "death
experience" - only Love remains - not your spiritual beliefs, or
ideologies, or philosophies about life; your pain or childhood
wounds.  Only Love...  All the left-over parent/child issues
dissolved as I watched her lay vulnerable and weak, speaking in
whispers as her body declined; eventually unable to speak, or
eat, or drink...  Only compassion and sorrow arose as her body
struggled to let go of, or hang on to, life - and she became fearful.
It was not an easy death the last few days.  It became more like
hard labor, giving birth to something unseen...

In the weeks before her passing, as she deteriorated, she saw
things in the invisible world: elves outside her window in the
trees, and people from the spirit world she did not know standing
near her bed.  And what she called a "beautiful woman" whom
she said had come to "help her on her journey."  I surely hope so...

There were no "religious" or "spiritual" overtones to any of it.
No talk of "God", which surprised me from what I knew of my
mother; a sometimes very pious Christian.  There was only this
idea of a playful fantasy of going on a "journey" with "spirit
people" to help her.  Maybe life isn't as serious as we think,
maybe life is a playful journey.

Mom, you are safe now.
May you feel the Love on the other side of the veil...
For there is only Love and Grace at the end of the "journey."

I love you again and again - we all do...

~

Mom breathed her last breath this morning
March 21, 2019
at 10:21 am

6 days before her 91st birthday

~

Written March 10, 2019

When it is one-sided - Hermann Hesse

I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard
as a joke or foolishness...

It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true!

That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into
words when it is one-sided.  Everything is one-sided which can
be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided,
all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness.

When the exalted "Gotama" [Gautama] spoke in his teachings
of the world, he had to divide it into "Sansara" [Samsara] and
Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering, [and freedom
from suffering, into "enlightened"and "unenlightened"].  It cannot
 be done differently, there is no way for him who wants to teach.

But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us,
is never one-sided.

A person or an act is never entirely "Sansara" [Samsara] or
entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely
sinful.  It does really seem like this, because we are subject to
deception and the confines of time, which causes us to adhere
to one fixed belief and does not account for the fullness of truth.
Every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the
world is considered complete.  And so we must love the world
in its completeness...

...love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing
of all.

Hermann Hesse
From: Siddartha

via - The Beauty We Love

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Yin-Yang Mandala

A Love With No Name - Jeff Foster

Life produces life out of itself, the same life that was present
at the Big Bang is somehow also here - in form.  There are
moments when we can touch the wholeness of life, the
wordless mystery that permeates all creation - we can fall in
love with existence as it reveals an unconditional love with
no name.

We can become absorbed by life and realize we are not living
life, but life is living us. And we realize everything is deeply
okay - cosmically okay.  Even though our life situation hasn't
changed, our relationship to it has transformed.  We realize we
no longer need to struggle to find wholeness.  There is only
wholeness... 

Existence is rich with mystery and wonder, and sometimes,
without warning, light can shine through the cracks.
Life is somehow infinitely more than what it appears to be.
The extraordinary is hidden in the ordinary, just waiting to be
discovered.  Perhaps all the things we have taken for granted
are actually divine, sacred, infinitely precious expressions of

wholeness that cannot be expressed in thought or language.

We have invented many words over the years to try to point
to this cosmic wholeness, words like spirit, nature, Oneness,
Advaita, nonduality, consciousness, awareness, aliveness,
Being, Source, Existence, Isness, Tao, Buddha Mind,
and presence.

Thoughts and words fragment wholeness; they break up a
unified reality into separate things.  The world of thought is
the world of duality...  But the most important thing to
remember is that:
it's not about the words. 
It's about the wholeness of life itself;

inner stillness, a love letter from stillness to itself.

Life, then, is about finding out who you really are, beyond who
you think you are, beyond who you've been taught you are,
beyond your story about who you are, beyond all your concepts
and images of who you are;
the wholeness that you are...

Jeff Foster
Excerpt From: The Deepest Acceptance

~

Photo - Mandala Art
digitally altered

You have not danced so badly - Hafiz

art by Rassouli

You have not danced so badly my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.

You have waltzed with great style,
My sweet...

[.....]

So what if the music has stopped for a while.

So what if the price of admission to the Divine

Is out of reach tonight.

So what, my dear
If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.

The mind and body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,
But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.

Have patience,
For He will not be able to resist your longing
For long.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.

You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet...

Hafiz
Persian Poet
1320-1389

~

Art: "The Dance"

Rassouli

a wonderful artist!

Cosmic Origin...

We are equipped with everything we need - right now.
There is no linear self-improvement program
to measure up to;
no spiritual standard to compare our progress with;
achieving lofty goals of "enlightenment" or non-duality.

Everything is open ended, boundaryless,
freely fluid, forever fluctuating - "enlightened."

The key - the one unchanging "truth" -
is Love;
unborn, inexplicable Love;

an "un-dualating" energy vibration of Love

that just IS - that has always existed -
that is the gateway to
knowing our Inner Beingness...

...into knowing
a truer Vibration that lies at
the Core of our Being;
the "mother energy" of
our Cosmology;
the place of no beginning, or ending,
only the infinity of the moment.

Dissolve into your Cosmic Origins...
Return to your "roots";
naked, Luminous, ever-present Love...

Entrain with the Maternal Heart,
where the ripples of  Love
form and expand,
pulsating the Rhythm of Ineffable Love
within you ~

You will know it when you feel it...

Pure, untainted, causeless, objectless

L o v e  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~ ~

Our Cosmic Origin

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 8, 2018

~

Photo - Aurora Borealis over
Yellowknife, Northwest Terr., Canada
Sent to us by a friend...

The Silent Articulation of a Face - Rumi

Love comes with a knife, not some
shy question, and not with fears
for its reputation!...

Love is a madman...

[.....]

There are love stories,
and there is obliteration into love.

You've been walking the ocean's edge,
holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive naked under and deeper under,
a thousand times deeper!
Love flows down...

[.....]

Don't put blankets over the drum!
Open completely.  Let your spirit-ear
listen to the green dome's passionate murmur.

Let the cords of your robe be untied.
Shiver in this new love beyond all
above and below.
The sun rises, but which way
does night go?

I have no more words.

Let soul speak with the silent
articulation of a face.

Rumi
(1207-1273)

excerpt from the original poem

Thanks to The Beauty We Love
for the photo and poem...

The Fathomless Pull - Papaji

There is a perpetual fathomless pull of Love into Love,
an undercurrent of Forever expanding Self into Self.
This is how I experience Love as the depth of Emptiness.
The more you go into this Fathomlessness
the more you will be pulled, attracted, dissolved into It.
...as you go deeper into it you will be more in Love
every moment.

This moment is pure Love
which is Absolutely Forever,
all is Love, everything is this Love,
there is no escape!

Love is the Self
and this is so complete
that it doesn't even need understanding.
There is nothing besides Love.

In the Heart there is no need for maps to get home.
Love, the Heart, this Moment, Is the Truth.
To see this Love everywhere see only from Love.
See from the Heart and you will see only the Heart.
This Love does not belong to a "me", or a "you."

Heart is Self...
Fathomless Love is where
Existence, Consciousness and Bliss
arise from.

Love is always Loving you...

You are this Love...

Be and radiate Love...

Simply Be

Papaji

From - The Truth Is

Light Will Split You Open - Hafiz

Light will someday split you open
even if your life is now a cage.

Little by little, you will turn into stars.
Little by little, you will turn into
the whole sweet, amorous universe.

Love will surely burst you wide open
into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy.
A life-giving radiance will come.

You will become so free
in a wonderful, secret
and pure Love that flows
from a conscious, one-pointed,
Infinite Light.

[.....]

O look again within yourself,

[.....]

and spin in Eternal Ecstasy...

Behold the Beautiful One
from the vantage point of Love.
He is conducting the affairs
of the whole universe
in a tree house - on a limb
in your heart.

Hafiz

From: The Subject Tonight is Love

It is said that the above poem reflects Hafiz's
mystical experience into cosmic consciousness.

How We Endure - Meister Eckhart

What keeps us alive,
what allows us to endure?
I think it is the hope of loving,
or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey
to find its source, and how the moon wept
without her lover's
warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts.
We wither like fields if someone close
does not rain their
kindness
upon
us.

Meister Eckhart

The Fire of Separation - Mirabai Starr

There is a longing that burns at the root of spiritual practice.
This is the fire that fuels your journey.  The romantic suffering
you pretend to have grown out of, that remains coiled like a
serpent beneath the veneer of maturity.  You have studied the
sacred texts.  You know that separation from your divine source
is an illusion.  You subscribe to the philosophy that there is
nowhere to go and nothing to attain, because you are already
there and you already possess it.

But what about this yearning?  What about the way a poem by
by Rilke or Rumi breaks open your heart and triggers a sorrow
that could consume you if you gave in to it?  You're pretty sure
this is not a matter of mere psychology.  It has little to do with
unresolved issues of childhood abandonment, or codependent
tendencies to falsely place the source of your wholeness outside
yourself.  The longing is your recognition of the deepest
 truth that God is love and that this is all you want.  Every
 lesser desire melts when it comes near the flame.

You realized that not every one experiences this.  For some
people, the spiritual journey is not so dramatic.  It's less about
the overwhelming desire for union with some invisible Beloved
than it is about quietly waking up.  It's about developing
compassion, rather than suffering passion.  There are people who
never doubt that God is with them, and so there is nothing to long
for.

But there are those, like you, who have felt the Divine move like
an ocean inside them, and, incapable of sustaining an unbroken
relationship with that vastness, feel they have been banished to
the desert when the wave recedes.  There is a tribe of holy lovers,
who have tasted the glorious sweetness that lies on the other side
of yearning, when the boundaries of the separate self momentarily
melt into the One, before the cold wind of ordinary consciousness
blows through again, and restores your individuality.  You would
risk everything to rekindle that annihilating fire.  You would leave
your shoes at the door and run after the cosmic flute player, if only
you could hear that music one more time.

You would give up everything for one glimpse of the Beloved's
face.  You sneak into his chamber in the middle of the night and
say "Here I am. Ravish me."  But when you awake the next morning,
swooning, and alone, you realize you missed the entire encounter.
You throw your clay cup on the cobblestones and it shatters.  You
thought you would marry, bear babies, make a career in broadcasting.
You wander city streets during siesta hour and wonder where He is
sleeping.  Your longing and your satisfaction are reciprocal.
The moan of separation is the cry of union...

Mirabai Starr

Excerpt from: Longing for the Beloved
posted in Parabola
via - No Mind's Land