Silence Calls To Us - Nathalie Delay

Art: Meganne Forbes

It's interesting to observe how hard it is to stay alone,
in silence, without distractions.
We are afraid to be face-to-face with ourselves.
Face-to-face with our impatience, our agitation, our worry.
Face-to-face with the depth of our being.
We are afraid to dive into the infinite space of our true nature,
when no attribute nor any - story covers it up.
And yet it calls to us in silence,
but we don't listen.

And yet we have an acute and painful longing for it,
like exiles too long cut off from their homeland.
So, instead of trying to fill the space which has appeared,
let us give ourselves over to silence, to the absence of certainty.
Let us not miss the incredible opportunity to be,
in all simplicity and humility
and taste the nectar of pure presence
when there are no more expectations, only the gift of self.
Let us not miss this unique chance to taste the substance of the 
moment when no superfluous activity waters it down.

Nathalie Delay.com

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Art: Meganne Forbes

 

Our True Nature - A Buddhist Perspective

Remember the clear light, the pure white light from which
everything in the universe comes, to which everything in the
universe returns; the original nature of your own mind.
The natural state of the universe unmanifest.

Let go into the clear light,
trust it, merge with it.
It is your own true nature,
it is home.

[.....]

No matter where or how far you wander, the light is only
a split second, a half breath away.  It is never too late to
recognize the clear light.

From the Tibetan Book of the Dead

Adapted and translated by W.Y. Evans-Wentz,
edited by Jack Kornfield

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Soaking in Being - John Scott

Ananda has been an ongoing exploration and inquiry for
me for several years.  My morning practice has gradually
become what I call "soaking in Being."  Shortly after waking
up and brushing my teeth, I sit in a favorite chair that fits
me particularly well.  The deep sweet, physical relaxation of
sleep is still present and readily available for me to "soak" in.
I simply turn attention gently toward this felt sense of Being.
The body responds.  It seems that Being loves it when the
light of Awareness shines upon it.  The feeling of well-being
shines brighter when attention turns toward it.  Waves of
well-being wash over and through the body.  Breathing slows
and almost stops.  The felt-sense of well-being or bliss seems
centered within the belly as it ebbs and flows throughout the
body.  Sometimes it almost tickles and makes me want to laugh.
Eyes are usually open and maybe even looking around the
room, watching the morning sunlight stream in through the
blinds.  Thoughts may be coming and going, no problem.
Meanwhile the body soaks.  I feel it now as I type this.

Over the years, I've come to understand this as what is
described in the Upanishads as Sat-Chit-Ananda, or
"Awareness of Being is Bliss," as Nisargadatta put it.  When
Awareness becomes aware of Being, bliss shines forth just
as light and heat emanate from the sun.  The light and heat are
not separate from the sun.  They're all one thing.  And 
Awareness-Being-Bliss are all one "thing":  True Nature.

Just as the sun may be obscured by clouds or may even seem
to disappear at night, so it is with the radiance of Ananda.  But
the sun never really stops shining.  It's just that our perspective
is constantly changing, and we have to remind ourselves of that
and come back to the felt-sense of Being, over and over again.
It seems that this is the kernel of all spiritual practices, this
remembering who we are and Knowing it even through changing
circumstances - feeling it at all times and Knowing it as ourselves.

John Scott is a project manager for a university health science center
and a Certified iRest Yoga Nidra Teacher living in Austin, Texas

~

with thanks to Kathleen Knipp
at Pathless Yoga

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

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

 

What's Real? - a meandering...

Tired of the weariness of existence 
and the "games" that people play...

Lost all longing for, or any sense of devotion to 
any "spiritual" entity. All "spiritualities" seem to be just
explanations and theories about existence; all the many
theologies, dogmas, doctrines, disciplines, traditions,
religions & practices; Karma, reincarnation, and
anything else humans have come up with to try to "explain"
how it all is - "The Truth of Existence..."

Are we just another species replicating itself...
Are we a dream...
Or - Are we Source morphing ItSelf into human form...

Is it really true that our True Nature is
 kindness & compassion & love...
There seems to be an inherent ignorance of that Nature...

What makes humans believe that a "God" - any one
"God" - is "right", or "in control..." It's all the same
 "God-energy" anyway - in essence - prior to manifestations

 of a personal "God" that we choose to name...

Is it true that there is only Pure Consciousness
manifesting ItSelf in all expressions so that "IT"
can experience humanity and all the experiences 
here in this realm -
over and over and over again...

My meanderings lead me to ask: Why - why after
billions of experiences in billions of manifestations
would "IT" (Consciousness) want more of the same
experience...Why does "IT want to keep manifesting
ItSelf just to experience limited human life in its
vulnerability...  Hasn't "IT" learned enough already...

It is a belief to help explain this existence, but you have
to believe it is true...

And am tired of all beliefs and theories and explanations
that leave me empty, disconnected - spiritually disoriented...

What is there that actually reveals the "Truth of Existence..."
"Direct Experience" you say...

But we all have different experiences of that too...

And who came up with all these concepts, theories and
conjectures, that we are supposed to just believe in...
Some ancient "sage" meditating in a cave?

I do miss not having an "explanation story" to believe in,
or a "God" to believe in, but - still want to know what
the Truth really is...

Is there something in us called Essence, Pure Being, Pure
Consciousness?  And if so, why don't we know this
Beingness, this Essence that we are...

Some say we have supposedly "forgotten" - concealing
the "Truth" of who we are from ourselves...
Why would we do that...

Why do we spend a lifetime seeking for what we already are...
Like looking for your cat, thinking it might me under the chair,
when all along it's been sitting in your chair watching you
search for "it"...

You have to be invested in what you believe in;
that it's true.  Even if it isn't...

And we all believe something different...

Having hope for a "better" reality, or a "better" you -
"enlightenment"- is the universal manipulation...

On the other hand, I don't believe that there is only
this reality - "just this..."
What of mystical experiences...

And believing in God/Guru only gives us a feeling of
worthiness, rightness - or unworthiness and "wrongness";
of being loved, special - or even condemned...

It's still all about "you" -
not what's Real...

So - what is "Real..."

The proverbial existential question...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Meanderings
June 27, 2021

P.S. - All that is required to "know" the "Truth"
is to enter the deep "inner space" and discover
the Heart of our own Being for ourselves...

Or is that just a belief too :)

~

Photo from the Internet
"Time Tunnel"

 

The Amusement Park - Jed McKenna

Awakening to your True Nature is like dying; it's a certainty,
inevitable.  You're going to get there no matter what you do,
so why rush?  Enjoy your life, it's free.  Cosmic Consciousness
and Altered States and Universal Mind are the names of the
rides in this vast and fascinating dualistic amusement park.
So are Poverty and Disease and Despair.  Enlightenment,
though, is not another ride.  Enlightenment means leaving the
park altogether, but why leave the park?  In the park you can
be a saint or a yogi or a billionaire or a world leader or a
warlord.  Happiness, misery, bliss, agony, victory, defeat, it's
all here.  When the time comes to leave the park, you'll know
and you'll go...

Jed McKenna

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

"Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door" ;)

(a line from Credence Clearwater Revival's song
"Lookin' Out My Back Door" - 1970)

https://youtu.be/Aae_RHRptRg

Take a ride :)

Resurrected...

 Breaking free of concepts, constructs, beliefs and stories
that have kept me entombed...

I rise...

Waking up to my "True Nature"

a living expression of "The Sacred" within me...

I rise...

Untangling the tattered threads of old roles, old crafted identities
worn to make me feel safe and important...

I rise...

Letting go of frayed "lifelines" that kept
me tethered to the shore of familiarity and conformity...

I rise...

Now not needing to be other than who I Am
my natural, playful, creative, expressive Aliveness...

I rise...

Mystic Meandering

April 3, 2021

~

Photo: Vortex Art 2010 - Mystic Meandering
done with fingers and Craypas oils

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

Fall Open - Amoda Maa

 

Adversity or suffering is an "organic" part of the human
condition and despite the discomfort and/or issues it brings,
it typically also offers an opportunity for growth or breakthrough.

It is only when we meet life from the unknown - and that is 
what Silence really is, an open-ended unknownness - that we can
really listen to what is true.

...meeting life - right here and now, in this moment - is 
ultimately an invitation to embrace openness.  I invite you
to reject nothing, welcome everything, and surrender into
the deepest falling of the open heart.

I invite you to fall open, even when your world is falling
apart...

The personal and global crises we experience in today's world
offer a potent opportunity to turn our allegiance from
the war with reality to the Silent Awareness that is always here.

What is closer than economic collapse?
What is closer than social breakdown?
What is closer than any loss?
What is more intimate and direct than
any thought?

If you stop and listen...
If you stop and feel...
there is the warmth of your body,
the ebb and flow of your breath,
and the pulse in your belly.

If you stop and soften,
there is the simplicity of being.

This recognition of the truth of your innermost nature
is not a spiritual palliative.
It's not about denying what's going on in the world.
It's not about sticking your head in the sand.

It's about meeting reality as it is,

not as you imagine it to be.

Amoda Maa

Excerpts from an article in Stillness Speaks

with thanks to Dorothea Mills

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Our Fundamental Nature - Zen Master Daehaeng

The invisible energy of the Universe
is our Fundamental Nature, our underlying Essence,
the True Self, the Mind of the mind.  It is the
Essence that moves us; is not separate from the
"false self".  Our "True Self" is the basis of the "false self."
 There is nothing that is not my-self.
If I know something, the Universe knows it; nothing
is secret.  "The work" is to experience this True Nature
for yourself; to completely rely upon our True Nature,
our inherent Nature.

Entrust everything that confronts you, both good
and bad, to that Fundamental Inherent Nature.

~

Truth does not depend upon the existence of the
teachings of an "enlightened" person.

~

Inside death, life already exists.  And inside life,
death already exists.
Death is just putting on a new set of clothes.

Zen Master Daehaeng

Korean Buddhist

Excerpts from - No River To Cross

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

Let everything touch your Heart
and see how your view of the world changes.

MM

Out of the Unseen - Matt Licata

In an environment of "embodied attunement", we are able to
rest in the mystery of Being.  We can explore unstructured
states of consciousness and enter courageously into the dark
and into the light.  In this sense, love is an alive field of
presence in which experience can unfold into greater levels
of integration and cohesion.

From this perspective, "I love you" = "I allow you."  I can
allow you to have your own experience, to organize and make
meaning of the world in the way that you do.  I can allow you
to be what you are.  While I will not allow you to abuse me or
to act violently or break the agreements and boundaries we
have established, I can allow your experience to be what it is,
and unfold the way it does.

By meeting people where they are we can be vehicles of love...

We can enter into friendship with another and their experience
as it is, but not so close that we lose perspective and become
emotionally fused...  In this sacred middle territory we offer
the gift of our "attuned presence" - the offering of pure space...
For space is our true nature.  By resting in the organic space of
Being.....we do not need people to be different, to change, to
become "awakened", to be in "high vibration", or to "heal" in
order for us to love them.  We also will not place the burden
upon them to take care of our unlived lives and unmet
emotions for us, and we will honor their unique process and
journey, by being there for them if we are needed.

We can provide the same space for ourselves.
In any here and now moment, we can discover that our
nature as Awareness Itself is in fact the ultimate holding
environment.  While as an infant we depended upon
another to provide this environment for us, in which we
could rest in Primordial Beingness, it is actually here at all
times.  It is here now, pouring out of the unseen and soaking
into ever cell and strand of DNA.

With eyes and heart wide open.....just look and you will feel it
surrounding you... right now.  While we may not always
understand our experience [or others] - and while it may never
conform to our ideas, hopes, and dreams about the life we were
"meant to live" - we can come to trust that it is unfolding
uniquely, emerging out of the unseen hand of Love.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Mammatus Clouds.
See the two hands with forearms
reaching down, from right upper corner
to center of photo :)

A Deeper Intelligence - Amoda Maa

There's an intelligence that's deeper than thought
and more intimate than concept.

There's an intelligence that weaves together
the substance of your body,
the tapestry of your life,
and the majesty of your light.

It's the same intelligence that
makes the stars shine,
the planets dance,
and new suns to be born.

It's the same intelligence that
makes a bird sing,
a flea jump,
and a microbe eat up pathogens.

It's the intelligence that holds you
whilst you fall apart,
whilst you bear the unbearable,
whilst you endure the suffering of ignorance...

This intelligence has never not been here,
in the deep you.

It's just that you looked the other way.
You gave your allegiance to an imaginary intelligence,
an external authority believed to be true because
they told you so.

You ignored your true knowing for the knowledge of beliefs
force fed to you by those you thought were in power.

And those beliefs became your thoughts
and you believed those thoughts
to be your master.

But, my friend, the time has come.
The time for you to look within,
to go deeper than thought,
to turn away from imagined authority.

To become your own master...
of that which is truly alive in you...

Because, my friend, when you know the unshakability
of the openness of your true nature,
you will no longer give you power away and
you will no longer be threatened
by that which is not true.

You will irrevocably know
that there is no one and no thing that can take away
that which is your birthright... your aliveness,
the naked fact of your being-ness,
that makes life possible.

And you will live by this aliveness,
you will live by this intelligence,
you will live by the truth of your unshakable presence...
...come what may.

This, my friend, is how you
rise as truth in the face of lies.

This is how you are born into a new world
as an old one crumbles.

It is time, my friend...

Amoda Maa

with thanks to:
Dorothea Mills
Ocean Speak

~

Photo - Aurora Borealis over Yellow Knife Canada
from the internet

To Meditate or not to Meditate - Amoda Maa

To meditate... or not to meditate?

Is a dedicated mediation practice the only road to
"enlightenment"... or is the direct rout of recognizing
"what is already free" a better way?  Should all effort be
put into achieving a "higher state of consciousness?... or is
it best to simply let go of any effort to do anything at all?

If I discipline myself to meditate, should I sit (preferably
cross-legged) once a day... or is it twice or maybe three times?
And should I watch my breath... or is it my thoughts, or my
sensations?  Maybe I should chant in Sanskrit... or Hindi or
Japanese?  Maybe I should repeat the sacred OM from my heart...
or is my belly a better place?  Maybe I should send loving
thoughts in every out-breath... or visualize golden light from
my third eye?  Maybe I should try to focus on the gaps between
thoughts... or maybe I should just try to stop thinking all together?

And if I make no effort, how do I "awaken"?  Isn't there something
I need to do?  How do I transcend thinking?  How do I shift into an
"awakened state?"  Maybe if I read enough books or listen to enough
spiritual teachers, I will "get it"?

To meditate... or not to meditate?  The question is a conundrum
to the mind that seeks satisfaction.  The mind seeks a definitive
answer, as if this would bring an end to mind's unease.  The
personhood seeks certainty, as if the certainty of "spiritual
progress" would bestow a badge of worthiness or specialness.

But the question of meditation cannot be answered by the mind.
It can only be realized when Silence has become the bedrock of
your life.  This Silence is not about closing the doors, turning off
the phone and lighting candles.  Nor is it to do with trying to get
rid of your thoughts [or your ego, or the notion of I/me]...
or imagining the perfect sanctuary of peace.

This Silence happens when you stop giving attention to the
narratives that wrap themselves around your experience of reality.

This Silence happens when you turn towards tenderness every time
an unwanted feeling enters your inner landscape.  This Silence
happens when you have surrendered all resistance to what is.
This Silence happens when you are no longer the center of your
universe, when you have become without a center and [you realize
that] the whole universe is in you.  Without resistance, there is
no inner conflict, no inner division, no outside and no inside, no
barrier and no boundary.

When you know your true nature as Silence, there is no need to
do meditation... [because] you ARE meditation.  True meditation
is a state of Being.  It is your natural open state, there is nothing to
move away from and nothing to move towards.  You are simply
and irrevocably here.  There is no longer a question... because
in Silence all questions fall away.

So, it is not about whether you meditate or not.  It's about whether
you can fall into the Silence that is always here prior to your
ideas of what meditation is, or what it can give you, or where
it can take you.  Whether you sit in deep stillness or whether you
are doing something in this world, [the requirements of daily living]
 this Silence is always here... it is in you as Being-ness [your inner
Beingness]. Beingness does not need to do meditation... 
It IS meditation...

I am often asked whether I meditate or not... and I sort of shake my
head, unable to give a definitive answer.  Did I used to do meditation?
Yes.  Until meditation swallowed me up and all that was left was
Silence.  Now the whole of life is meditation, without doing a practice,
without trying to get anywhere, without trying to change anything.
Now... I AM meditation.

So perhaps it is wise to ask a different question...  how can I meet
the world [live my daily life] as Silence?  Perhaps the question
will turn the mind around from its horizontal searching into the
verticality of Being that is always here.  And then you discover
what true meditation is...

Amoda Maa

with gratitude to Michel at No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Carving out a "Path"...

Life is asking me to redefine "the path" - again - to deepen
into a "new" way of seeing, being and living.  I am
embarking on what feels like a new step into the unknown,
carving out a "path" for myself, opening to new directions,
new perspectives, new awareness.  Being open to what is
really living this Life called "me" - and - at the same time,
allowing myself to just be the way I am.  As Ramana Maharshi
said to those who were searching for the Truth of their being -
"Be as you are..."  In letting go of the need to look through a
particular "spiritual" lens, I realize how freeing it is to allow
myself to just be myself...  To not strive to know the Truth,
but to let it reveal ItSelf; to not strive to be "spiritual" or
"non-dual" - or "enlightened."  I can just be who I am  -
as that is who my true "Beingness" IS.  I don't have to be
self-conscious about using words like "I", "me", "my" - in
some kind of pseudo non-dual awareness - because...  It's all
just Beingness, pure Awareness, pure Consciousness, Source,
God, etc., expressing ItSelf.  There's no need to make a
distinction between self and Self.  It's all The Self...
Imagine that :)

I don't need to worry about whether I'm coming from the ego-
self because it's part of the whole package, part of the
wholeness that we are.  I only need to BE, and let
BEingness reveal ItSelf, express ItSelf, live Itself as "me."

It's not about "me" being "enlightened", or spiritualizing
everything, but seeing the True Nature of myself and
being authentic...

I continue to gradually shed the conceptual frameworks that
have defined and informed my "path" so far - the boxes of belief
that have tended to constrain this authentic expression of Self,
extricating my sense of self from the life dramas that have
preoccupied my mind.  This shift in consciousness may take
some time, and I don't know where I will land, realizing that
Life is truly a Sacred Adventure of just Being, and adventure
in lightness and boldness; of letting go of the sack of
insignificant items/beliefs that I've been carrying for so long...
It's a never-ending exploration...

Namaste
Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Stillpoint Presence - John Welwood

If you look directly into the experiencing consciousness itself,
what you find is a silent presence that has no shape, location or
form.  This nameless, formless presence - in, around, behind
and between all our particular thoughts and experiences - is
what the great spiritual traditions regard as our True Nature,
the Essential Self, or Holy Spirit...

Be-ing means resting in the flow of this Presence, which is
awake, open and responsive.  This dynamic fluid openness
provides a direct channel to the heart of Life...

Our [unconditioned nature] lies much deeper than our
conditioned personality and behavior, which are always a
mix of positive and negative tendencies.  It lies in the essential
openness at the core of our nature [Being].
It is the stillpoint Presence.

In turning away from our [essential nature] we throw away our
own jewel-like essence and then express that alienation in
everything we do.  This is the plague that is ravaging humanity.

John Welwood
from: Love and Awakening

John was a Spiritual Psychotherapist
known for integrating Western Psychology
and Eastern Spiritual Wisdom

He passed Jan 17, 2019

~

Photo - Mandala Art
2013

The Invisible World - John O'Donohue

When you enter the world, you come to live on the threshold
between the visible and invisible.  You bring with you a sense
of belonging to the invisible that you can never lose or finally cancel.
There is always some magnet that draws your eyes to the horizon or
invites you to explore behind things and seek out the concealed
depths.  You know that the real nature of things is hidden deep
within them.

When you become aware of the invisible as a live background,
you notice how your own body is woven around your invisible
soul, how the invisible lives behind the face of those you love,
and how it is always there between you.  The invisible is one
of the most powerful forms of the unknown.  It envelopes our
every moment.  It is the region out of which we emerged and the
state we are destined for, yet we never see it...

John O'Donohue

Excerpt from: Eternal Echoes

~

Be sure to click on the full screen icon on the video
for the full effect.

"Equinox" - Rumi

Artist: Puisi - ambua.id

Look at love
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love.

Look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life.

Why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad.
Pay attention to how things blend.

Why think separately

of this life and the next
when one is born from the last?

Look at your heart and tongue,
one feels but deaf and dumb,
the other speaks in words and signs.

Look at water and fire,
earth and wind,
enemies and friends all at once.

The wolf and the lamb,
the lion and the deer
far away and yet together.

Look at the unity of this
spring and winter
[or summer and fall]
manifested in the equinox.

You too must mingle my friends...

Be like sugarcane,
sweet and silent.
Don't be mixed up with bitter words.
My Beloved grows right out of my [your] own heart.
How much more union can there be...

Rumi

Translation by Mader Khalili
From: This Dance of Bliss

Poetry Chaikhana

Original title: "Look at Love"

~

The "Equinox" is a "pivotal cosmic hinge"
signifying equilibrium, or equality;
a fluid threshold, poised between 2 seasons.
Or in the case of the whirling dervish,
the union/merging of heaven and earth;

between Divine and human.
The Dervish whirls with one palm open up
to the cosmos and the other palm downward,
open to the earth...
symbolizing the union of our Divine nature
and our human nature...
the fusion of spirit and matter;
being reborn to the Truth of our Being...

As Rumi says -
"how much more union can there be? :)

Lay It Down - Richard Wehrman

Could he really lay
it down, he wondered,
all the accumulated
projected desires, partly
his own, but most of it laid
out by others, in books,
in talks, in teachings
that said, this is your goal:
the unattainable, the
spiritually pure - you, the
ignorant, the unwashed and
uneducated - this is your
way to become better
than you inherently are.
No sense that you were [already]
what you were meant to be,
only what you might 

be molded to, chiseled into,
added onto your skeletal
frame of lack and loss.
For laid down, what would
he have but himself,
the very thing they convinced
him was worthless the
way it was.
What if this was all
he had, all he was... ?

Richard Wehrman
From: Being Here

Original title: "All He Had"

The Purpose of the Journey - Joseph Campbell

The purpose of the journey is compassion.

When you have come past the pairs of opposites,
you have reached compassion.
The separateness apparent in the world is secondary.

Beyond that world of opposites is an unseen,
but experienced, unity and identity in us all.

Joseph Campbell
from The Hero's Journey

~*~

Compassion is knowing that
you are part of everyone,
and everyone is a part of you - is you.
When seeing this there is no longer judgment,
just a deeper understanding and respect
for our humanity -
a deeper compassion.

In the deep Stillness of Being
there is a deep compassion for everything that is.

There is compassion for the world
when seen as a whole - in context.
The nature of our Being is deep compassion.

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
c. 2004-2006

~

Photo - from a friend of a friend...

Trust Your Vision - Ivan Granger

So often we pour ourselves intensely into life's purpose without
actually pausing to consider why we are doing what we are doing.
How is it a reflection of who we truly are?  How does it express
our specific qualities and role within the larger panorama?  What
does it imply about the fundamental nature of reality?

Rarely in the modern world are we encouraged to discover our
vision and dedicate ourselves to it.  To the prevailing mindset,
one's vision is thought to be intangible, suggesting something
that is a fantasy whose pursuit is narcissistic or even delusional.
The focus of life must be practical with goals that are approved
and easily measured.

That approach, while seemingly reasonable and safe, is
devastating to both the individual and to society as a whole.
While we certainly must live effectively within the physical
and social worlds that require a certain level of practical purpose,
we are not such stunted creatures that exist only on that level.
We are magical beings, here to embody immensity and love and
the will of the universe as it expresses itself uniquely through
each of us.

Vision is the way we discover our personal path through the world.
Vision is the way we come to know ourselves, allowing us to be as
we are, showing us how to act with strength and creativity in
service to our true [vision].

A vision is not the same as some fantasy or daydream.  A true
 vision is the voice of nature, the intention of the universe,
uniquely tuned to our soul.

The word "vision" can trip us up because we think of seeing
things that are external to our physical bodies, so we often
consider a vision to be external to us.  But vision in the
spiritual sense is the conscious mind's way to assign meaning
to the deep recognition of self as a harmonious expression of the
self-aware universe. In other words, vision is not so much about
seeing as it is about being.  A vision is a challenge to ourselves
to be more fully ourselves.  Vision is a vocation, the calling of
the soul to its true role.

The first question is, how strongly do we want to see?  And then
we must answer the second question, do we dare live the truth
seen?  Then again, what's the point to any other path but our own?

Ivan Granger
commentary on the poem
"Trust Your Vision" by Stephen Levine
Poetry Chaikhana

~

Photo - Sunset digitally enhanced...