What Calls to You? - Dorothy Hunt

How does the Sacred call to you?  Through deep longing?
Through loving? Through the birth of an infant or the death of
a beloved friend? Through the silence of a forest or the
magnificence waves crashing at sea? Through a teacher or
teaching?  A guru or a God?  A scripture or a spiritual traditions?
Through art, poetry, music? Playing with your dog, sitting with
your cat?  Through a meditation practice or practice of service? Or
does the Sacred calling come when you are most desperate, most
vulnerable, unable to know what to do, where to go, how to address
the pain you are suffering or the suffering you see all around you?
Does it call you to your knees when you don't know where else
to turn?

What if the Sacred is actually calling us every moment: Come; see!
See what you are, what this moment is.  Come back Home.
Return - again and again and again!

Many of us think that a sacred calling is a calling to "do." but my
sense is that the Sacred calls us to "be,"and in the "being" the doing
 happens spontaneously. 

.

Being a human expression of life does not mean we have no
perception of choice, or of  moving toward or away from our
experience of the Sacred, toward or away from what is most true
within.  Rather than a calling to be something, perhaps the Sacred
is calling us to be, to see, to respond from what is most sacred 
within us.  Perhaps the Sacred calling calls us to come out  of
hiding - hiding our true self, hiding our true radiance, hiding the
Light that is here shining...

How does the Sacred call to you?  What does it beckon you to
discover, to sense, to be?  Perhaps the Sacred calling is not your
life's work. but discovering who/what is actually living life - your
life, to be precise!  

Dorothy Hunt
Buddhist Teacher

with thanks to No Mind's Land

Photo - taken by my brother off Salisbury Beach, Mass

 

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

The Soul's Secret Signature - C.S. Lewis

...Are not all friendships born at the moment when at last you
meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and
uncertain at best) of that something which you were born
desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all
the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and
day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking
for, watching for, listening for? But you'be never had it...

All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have
been but hints of it - tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite
fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear.
But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came
an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself,
you would know it.

Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say:
"Here at last is the thing I was made for."  We cannot tell each
other about it.  It is the secret signature of each soul, the
incommunicable and unappeasable longing, the thing we
desired before we met our wives [husbands] or made our friends
or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our
deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife [husband] or
friend or work.  While we are, this is.  If we lose this, we lose all.

C.S. Lewis
from: The Problem of Pain

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
[the True Friend] -

and say, sit.  Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Star Burst Crystal

Follow the Warmth - Fred LaMotte

When you were a
very young child
you used no esoteric practice,
no spiritual technique.
You just honored people
who made your chest expand
with silent warmth.

You stayed away from those
who chilled and shrank
your heart.
How does the orchid open
in the wilderness?
It bends toward light,
away from cold.
Follow the sacred scripture
of your body.
Walk through the forest
at midnight holding
the candle of your breath.
You don't need to see far.
Just step into the next
lit pool of silence.
Ways will open,
ways will open surely.
Now is the time to depart
from the kingdom of fear
and travel towards the golden
palace of your [True] Self.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Vortex Art with Craypas oils
c. 2011

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

Recognize Your Eternal Self - Mooji

The mind fears...
What is the message in fear?
Find the message in fear...

Fear empties itself as soon as there is revelation...

YOU (theTrue Self) are before the movement
of fear that arises...

Realize your Self that is before time,
before phenomenon...

Wake up to the recognition of your Eternal Self.
[That is] the Awareness in which fear occurs.

Just keep quiet...

Don't identify with the reactions and interactions,
just feel your Existence and let the fear burn off...

Identify with the Presence that sees,
and stay with this Presence,
and you'll come to a place of
complete [internal] Stillness...

There is Stillness in that space of fear...

When fear is met
what expands is a sense of spaciousness...

There is an intuitive sense that you and the
spaciousness of Stillness are one.

There is no separation...

In this place your mind of fear will not have
much power because you're in your Natural State
of Awareness.

Mooji

~

"On acquiring strength of vision she recognizes
the Universe as Her very own Self"

verse 15, The Pratyabhijnahrdayam

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Uncharted Woods - Adyashanti

Listen now, or lose your life, for what I have to say is what you
have imagined in quiet moments but have failed to realize in
full.  Perhaps you were too timid or astonished at the critical
moments, or couldn't find the courage to step through the veil
of your frail life when the door was opened for you.

Or perhaps you wanted to keep your life as your own, and
chose to hold onto a few pennies when you could have had
gold.  No matter, for yesterday has passed into the dust of
remembered dreams, and tomorrow's story is yet to be written.

Which is precisely why you and I are now here together...
Stand with me here at the precipice and take my hand in yours,
for I am good company to those ready to depart familiar ground.
If not, then let loose of my hand now and take that of a more
familiar companion.  For where we stand is known, but our
next step will not be - nor the one after or the one after that.

So shoulder all of your longing and intent and leave all else
behind.  I give you fair warning: The world you are about to
leave will not be there when you return.  For nothing truly left
behind is ever the same upon our return.  Let us not waste any
more time on discussions or debates; you have surely been
caught in those tide pools too long already.  Too much talk
is wearying to the soul and evades the spirit of things.
Longing is the true measure of a man or woman and alone
has the power to draw us out of ourselves and into the vast
air of eternity...

This is as fair a day as any to begin the journey back
 to your origin.  So lift your foot together with mine and
 we will step off the well-trodden paths and into the
 uncharted woods where the essence of things lies
 waiting for you to open your eyes.

It is time to begin watching your steps, dear companion.  For
you have already wasted the goodness of too many days
stumbling along with the unconscious drove.  Today I bid
you to place no foot upon the earth without feeling the sinews,
skin, and bone of your feet with each step.  How awake you
are to the least of things will determine how awake you become
to the greatest in due time.  For in the play of time, the great
manifold diversity of things in the end proves their unity....

I can see in your eyes a fear and confusion.  But fear not,
for I do not speak of death.....but of awakening from death,
from sleepwalking in dreams and veiled imagination.  Beyond
 the veil all is well, and more well than I can attest.  Within the
immortality of what you are, there is a contentment and peace
born only of your true identity.

Have you not been told how grand you are, how uncontained,
how limitless?  I for one maintain that you are as unseen and
eternal as the space that spans beyond the myriad universes.
I praise the immortal Self - not one self among many, but the
Self within all selves.  For everywhere I go, and in each and
everyone I meet, I greet my secret and unseen Self.  For I know
 each man and each woman as I know myself, none greater or
lesser in essence or worth.

I have no desire or pull toward the gods, nor sacred relics,
nor holy books.  For I have waded through the various
dogmas and found them lacking in the essential vision, the
unitary glance that reveals God's hand within every gesture.
Why should we go looking for more than we are, when we
are what we are looking for?  Beware of misguided longing,
for it leads in the end to brutality.  How much blood has
already been spilled in God's name and how much more to
come?

I bid you, dear companion:  Throw off the yoke of belief,
for to arrive at the nobility of truth you must be cleansed
of all borrowed knowledge till you are as innocent as the
day before you were born.  You must forge from within your
longing a fiery sword of discrimination, unsheathed from the
past - determined to never again take anything secondhand,
but instead prove true or false each statement yourself.

For truth belongs to neither man or woman, nor holy book,
nor well-reasoned philosophy or belief, but only to itself -
immortal and pure. 

Adyashanti

Original title - "Everlasting Inheritance" (2006)

via - No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

There Are No Frames for the Soul - O'Donohue & Rumi

We are no sooner out of the womb than we must begin the
precarious unfolding and shaping of who we are.  If we
have bad or destructive times in childhood, we begin to fix
on a survival identity to cover over and to compensate for
what happens to us.  If we are never encouraged to be
ourselves we begin to construct an identity that will gain us
either attention or approval.  When we set out to construct
our lives according to a fixed image, we damage ourselves.
The image becomes the desperate focus of all our longing.
There are no frames for the soul.
In truth we are called, in so far as we can, to live without
an image of ourselves, or at least to keep images we have
free and open.  When you sense the immensity of the
Unknown within you, any image you have built of yourself
gradually loses its promise.  Your name, your face, your
address only suggest the threshold of your identity.
Somehow you are always secretly aware of this.
Sometimes you find yourself listening to someone
telling you what you should do or describing what is
going on inside you, and you whisper to yourself that
they have not the foggiest idea who you actually are.

John O'Donohue
From Eternal Echoes

via - The Beauty We Love

~

I am not from the East or West
not up from the ground
or out of the ocean.
My place is placeless
a trace of the Traceless.
I am from the Soul of souls.

Rumi

Heart-to-Heart Resonance - Eric Baret and Rumi

The heart is yearning to be open.
When a heart meets an open heart,
when a match approaches a lighted match,
it rejoices in unity, in the flame...
This is called transmission.
But nothing is transmitted.
No one transmits, no one receives;
There is [just] heart-to-heart [resonance].
There is only one heart.

Eric Baret

~

Some souls have gotten free of their bodies.
Do you see them?
Open your eyes for those who escape to meet
with other escapees, whose hearts associate in a way
they have of leaving their false selves to live
in a truer Self...

Rumi
From: Escaping to the Forest

~

What does pre-eternity mean to you?
What is your origin?  The Source?
What is spirit? 

Spend your life finding out your own state.
Those other mysteries will come clear.

God is depth.  And you, you are also deep.
The same depth is in you.

Don't worry about terminology, pre-existence,
the original face, spirit, soul.
Search within yourself.
The great mystery is there.

I want someone with a living pulse,
a living friend...

Excerpts from the Sayings of Shams Tabriz

Soul Fury
Rumi and Shams Tabriz on Friendship

Coleman Barks

Creating Enmity - J. Krishnamurti

Surely that thing which you fight you become.  If I am angry
and you meet me with anger what is the result?  More anger.
You have become that which I am.  If I am evil and you fight
me with evil means then you also become evil, however
righteous you may feel.  If I am brutal and you use brutal
methods to overcome me, then you become brutal like me.
And this we have done for thousands of years.  Surely there
is a different approach than to meet hate by hate.  If I use
violent methods to quell anger in myself then I am using
wrong means for a right end, and thereby the right end
ceases to be.  In this there is no understanding.  Anger is
to be understood; it is not to be overcome through violent
means.  Anger may be the result of many causes and
without comprehending them there is no escape from anger.

We have created the enemy, and becoming ourselves the enemy
in no way brings about an end to enmity.  We have to understand
the cause of our enmity and cease to feed it by our thought,
feeling, and action.  This is an arduous task demanding constant
self-awareness [and Self awareness] and intelligent pliability,
for what we are society is...  The enemy and the friend are
the outcome of our thought and action.  We are responsible for
creating enmity and so it is more important to be aware of our
own thought and action than to be concerned with the foe and
the friend, for right thinking puts an end to division.
Love transcends the friend and the enemy.

J. Krishnamurti
from: The Book of Life

via - The Beauty We Love

True Emptiness - Dorothy Hunt

True Emptiness - which we could also call formless Spirit -
fills the universe and is filled by the universe.  It contains
everything, yet is not separate from a single moment's arising,
or dissolving.  What I am calling Emptiness is simply empty of
self, and empty of definition.  The word "Emptiness" is not
really it, neither are any of our ideas about it, including the
ones I use to try to point to the Mystery that is Unnamable
and indefinable.  To be emptied of our attachment to
definitions and concepts - especially our self-concepts - is
to be unburdened, whole, fluid and free to truly be.

To be empty means we are open; to be empty means we are
available for whatever or whoever is in front of us; to be
empty means we are not stuck anywhere, but can experience
the fullness and the flow of life unhindered.  Our seeing is
empty until it lands on an object, is it not? Our freedom,
inherent wisdom and selfless love arise right out of
Emptiness...

For a moment, just allow yourself to be the emptiness, open
and without definition, yet intimate with the moment as it is.
You might discover a vast and spacious Presence that feels
more real, more connected, more meaningful and lovingly
your truest Self than anything you could ever imagine.  And
even though the mind cannot say exactly what this is,
something knows; something in you remembers.
And what remembers tenderly holds anything that may arise
to be seen, experienced or liberated...

Dorothy Hunt
Buddhist Teacher

 

The Uncarved Block - Cara Lumen

In Taoism, the uncarved block is who we are at our core,
the Essence of our being.  It is our Pure Self, our original state
of Being before it is shaped by various life processes.
Returning to the simplicity of the uncarved block means
returning to a wholeness.....at the center of our Being.

"The essence of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original
simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily
spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed..."
The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff

What are we like at the core?  What is our Essence?  What were
we before we layered our lives with experience?

Our life experience gradually shapes our original uncarved block
of Self.  Our beliefs dictate the shape, our responses and choices
become our carving tools.

When we come from a place of our uncarved block.....we allow
our life to unfold and simply shape things as they come.

What if we learn to stop where we are in our lives, go back to
the Essence of our uncarved block...?

We can let go of form and become whole and uncarved again.

If we go back to pure innocence, what is there?

It is our "spiritual Essence."  It is the Qi energy moving through
the body...

Learn to return to an awareness of the uncarved, untouched, unformed
Self [Being] and use the simplicity of that to fully experience your
present life.

Simply live...  Question perceptions...  Examine thoughts...
Learn to remain rooted in the wholeness of simplicity
of your uncarved block.

Choose only what nurtures you.

Cara Lumen
Excerpts from: Return To The Simplicity Of The Uncarved Block

The Pathless Path - reloaded...

This post was originally written in 2011
but is still timely for me...

I find the older I get the more I want to experience Truth directly,

and leave the many trodden "spiritual paths" that I've been on all my
life behind.  Even as a child I wanted to know "God" - a child's
understanding of God.  Then my search evolved and expanded to
include finding "myself" - whoever that was :), the Truth, Wisdom,
peace of mind, and last, but not least, the search for "Enlightenment."
They are all the same"path" under different disguises.  And now,
through all these many paths, I am feeling the need to settle, deepen,
and re-discover a sense of inner Truth; not by following a particular
external path - but by intuitively listening to the voice of my Heart;
experiencing Inner Beingness directly, through spending time in
Silence (which I avoid so easily).  Now if Life would only cooperate
and provide a less chaotic, disruptive, distracted life!  Just kidding -
maybe...  :)

 Being on a "spiritual path" implies that one is going somewhere,
seeking "Some - *thing*" at the end of the journey - like
retirement after a life of working; or a magical pot of gold at the end
of the mythical rainbow; or even the mystical "Holy Grail."  Or maybe
one is even seeking an end to something, like suffering, pain,
ignorance, their humanness, or the end of seeking.  But what if there
was no need for "a path",, no need for seeking the illusive big
"Some-thing" that spiritual seekers seek?  I find myself in this place
of questioning - again...  I have been down the "seeking road" -
many times.

The path of "Enlightenment"/"Awakening"/"Self-Realization",
particularly the path of what is known as Advaita or "Non-Duality",
has lost its luster, its pull, its certainty for me - much like the other
paths I have taken throughout my life.  It's just another construct.
  And I'd rather not describe Truth by a negative - with no-me, no-self,
 no other, no world - as Truth is all inclusive - including duality,
 me, self, other, world.

Even if one follows "a path" (which can be any path) there is no
guarantee that we will discover what we are looking for, and life will
not suddenly become easy or flowing with bliss.   We won't necessarily
lose our personality, with its quirks, our conditioning, or neuroses. 
Our thoughts will not stop, neither will our surface struggles, or
 our pain,  or our stories.  Walking "a path" doesn't even guarantee
 that we will  actually see life differently from either the mountain top,
 or nose to the ground;  or suddenly find our "purpose" -
as if there's only one. But no one tells us  this about "the path."
 It has to be a Self-discovery - for ourselves -  even if we have a
"Teacher" or follow a "Teaching"  to point the way.

Years of seeking, realization, recognition, and then forgetting, and then
remembering, and then forgetting again - brought me to the realization
that discovering (or rediscovering) this Being Self/Truth that we are,
 is through awareness of and deep intimacy with The Silence within;
through continually coming back to the Heart of Being - the space of
Silent, Still, innate Wisdom - which of course is wherever we are at the
moment, not off in the distance somewhere.  It's not a place. 
"The path" doesn't go anywhere.  There is no reward at the end. 
It's an inner pathless path...  And that's my "path" - rediscovering
 this inner Silent,  Aware Wisdom.  It's an inner pathless path
 of remembering; remembering the underlying Rhythm of
 Life ItSelf -

Ommmmmm...

"A mystic is content with nothing less than
to touch the Truth in its most universal purity"

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest in peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall
while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then
return to source.
Returning to the source is stillness,
which is the way of nature....

Returning is the motion of the Tao.

Lao Tzu

~~

Photo - taken by my father
1952/53

Free to Be - Fred LaMotte

The first discipline of non-violence is to honor every human being
as a unique soul-body, refusing to identify them by race, gender,
religion, or political party.

Yet just as much as right-wing movements, today's "progressive"
movement often promote conflict and division by labeling individual
Persons by their group identity.  Some of us who talk about "diversity"
actually stifle it, because real diversity is not to promote tribalism
[or nationalism], but to recognize the incomparable [unique]
Personhood of individuals. [As it also says in the Declaration of
Independence].

It is much easier to hate a category than a Person, whether your
animosity is toward Muslims or Christians, "black people", or
"white people", liberals or conservatives.

The beginning of world peace is to free each human soul-body from
racial, political, or religious abstractions.  Our incidental association
with a group is not who we really are.

I do not identify my Self [True Inner Being] as a color, as rich or poor.
capitalist or socialist, Republican or Democrat, Christian or
Pagan, [or American].  I am neither "good"nor "evil."  Those are just
conceptual chains with which your mind attempts to enthrall me.  But
I am not your concept of me:
you are.

If you want to superimpose a group identity on me, that is your act
of violence against the singularity of my Personhood.  You are free to
label me, but I am also free...  I refuse to identify with your label...
I Am who I Am...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

[brackets mine]

~

My note: It's an act of aggression when we impose prejudicial categories and labels on "others"; when we don't see that we are all a unique expression of our shared Core Beingness; when we've been enculturated to hate "other" people's cultures through fear because they are not like "us"...  We are all "free" when we recognize each other's Core Beingness as our own, and the diverseness of our individuality that expresses that Beingness and treat each other with respect and compassion.

And, oh btw, we are all immigrants here, unless you were born 100% Native American.  I am .2% Native American, but the rest of "me" comes from other countries, other cultures.  My English ancestors arrived here in the 1600-1700s and populated much of New England, and evidently somebody intermarried with a Native American.  My Irish and Scottish ancestors arrived probably in the 1800s and intermarried with the English ancestors, and my Norwegian ancestors arrived int he late 1800s, intermarrying with...  well you get the idea.  We are mongrels! :)  Essentially, however, we all share an Essential Beingness far beyond our ancestry, our humanness, far beyond personalities and character traits, beliefs, patriotism, opinions, DNA and intelligence.  And we are inherently Free to Be who and what we are!

And on another note:  My father was greeted by the Statue of Liberty coming back from Europe on a ship with thousands of other soldiers, (given to America by the French, btw), after serving in WWII at age 19-20 in Germany, being hit in the face with shrapnel from "enemy" mortar fire.  That was  his path, his journey, and that of his generation - to fight "the enemy" for an idealized freedom...  I don't think he (or that generation) understood things with the same "spiritual" lens that I do, but he did what he felt was right at the time, believing it was the right thing to do.  And I respect him for that, because his perceptions were different, although his war experience wounded him emotionally for life.  But he not only fought for America, he fought for the freedom of the Europeans in Northern Europe as well, and for the hope of freedom in the world... And yet we are still fighting!  Building walls instead of welcoming statues of liberty - because "we"/humanity (in general) lack the understanding of Who we all essentially are...

Namaste
_/\_

~

Photo -
via Stillness Speaks

A Story of Unexpected Compassion

While at the cardiologist's office last week, signing in with the receptionist, asking her some questions, a woman suddenly appeared behind me.  She interrupted in a frantic, anxious voice, obviously distressed:

"I don't mean to interrupt, but I just need to know when my appointment is because I have an echogram scheduled down the hall and I want to make sure I don't miss my appointment with the doctor."

I gently responded " no problem" to her interruption and stepped aside while she frantically went on.  I immediately noticed a portion of a vertical scar on her chest above the open top of her blouse - a sign of open heart surgery.

She was a fairly young (through my 68 year old eyes) short woman, disheveled, with stringy, dirty-blonde hair.  And even though it was nearly 60 degrees with no snow on the ground, she wore snow boots and a winter coat that sat cockeyed on her shoulders as she flailed her arms about excitedly; the unbuttoned coat flapped around as she flailed, in very apparent anxiety.  She reminded me of one of those odd characters in stories or movies, who interrupt a scene to bring awareness to something; to get your attention.  I could see the stress and fear on the woman's face, and in her body motions...  It was a familiar look and feeling.  I could relate...  I saw myself in her - although not quite as exaggerated - but often how I feel inside...

She kept apologizing for interrupting, and I kept saying it was no problem at all, that I understood; trying to put her at ease.

The receptionist, somewhat guarded, responded to her in a firm, almost stern voice - that her appointment was at 2:30 (it was now just after 1pm), and that she had time to get her echocardiogram done and come back in time for her appointment.  The woman left in a hurry, scuffing her snow boots across the carpeted floor.

I finished with the receptionist and took a seat, waiting for my turn.

After my visit with the doctor, I came out to a full waiting room - a sea of faces.  As I stood at the desk to make another appointment, I turned and saw the disheveled woman sitting there - fidgeting.  While I waited for the scheduler to attend to me, as she made no acknowledgment of my presence, I turned to the woman and said: "I see you made it back ok" - smiling.

She exhaled a long drawn out "yessss", looking frazzled - making more antsy body movements in her chair.

I said to her - "I have anxiety too" and smiled again, just wanting to soothe the woman's obvious internal suffering, as I knew deeply what that feels like - to be so anxious, to be so wound up inside that calmness doesn't seem possible at times.  And how "peace" often feels like a noble idea, just out of reach, while my frenetic mind and body take over, just like hers did.

I am haunted by the memory of her now - knowing how painful it is to go through life with such emotional intensity and the fear that lies hidden in the body, erupting in uncontrollable outbursts of anxiety at times - or heart problems :) - when awareness fails - although I have learned to meet it when the fearful mind arises, embracing it - trying to ride out its ferocity...  still...  I know how it feels when it is out of control...

Afterwards I was very aware that "I" didn't *decide* to be compassionate, yet Something in me responded automatically to her, from the Heart.  Compassion arose unexpectedly; a heartfelt response to reach out to someone in trouble - emotionally.

How ironic - in the cardiologist's office, where they take care of hearts, that I would experience a real Heart opening for another human being; meeting her where she was in her fear, not making judgments about her behavior...  Maybe that was a reflection, just a little glimpse in the mirror, of who "I" truly am - the True Self within.  Deep inside this fearful heart beats a Heart of Compassion...  I find that somehow comforting...

It's there in all of us, our True Nature, if we only open to it...

_/\_

Namaste

Please note:  this is not written to say how wonderful I am.  It's not about "me" being compassionate, but how the Heart opened and compassion arose unexpectedly.  How the disheveled woman came to me to teach me that it is there even when I don't realize it.  The woman's "condition" slowed my mind and gave me a different perspective.  I am forever grateful to the disheveled woman, and send her blessings wherever she is...

~*~

The only difference between "you" and "me"
are the words and concepts of "you" and "me."
The Source of everything is the same
- Love and Compassion -
this is [the True] Self.

Papaji

The Liberated Soul - Marguerite Porete

I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love...
...and the Soul is God by condition of Love,
thus I am God by divine nature...

(The liberated soul) loses her name in the one in whom she
is melted and dissolved.  Thus she would be like a body of
water which flows from the sea.  And when this water returns
to the sea, it loses its course and its name, and is now in the
sea where it rests...

This Soul is always in full sufficiency, in which she swims
 and bobs and floats, is surrounded by divine peace, without
any movement in her interior, and without any exterior work
[effort] on her part.

(The liberated soul) is at rest without obstructing the outpouring
of divine Love.  She no longer seeks God through penitence, nor
through any sacrament; not through thoughts, nor through words,
nor through works, nor through divine understanding, nor through
divine love, nor through divine praise.

Her will is planted in the One...  She is dissolved into that prior
existence where Love has received her.

She has fallen into certainty of knowing nothing and into
certainty of willing nothing.  And this nothingness...gives her
the All...

Marguerite Porete
14th Century French Mystic
Her writings, of which the above is only a
small excerpt, were considered heretical.
She was burned at the stake in Paris in 1310.

Porete's vision of the Soul is one of ecstatic union with God...
Once united with God the Soul's will becomes that of God's.

Interestingly 200 years later St. John of the Cross
expressed an almost identical view of the nature of the
Soul's union with God in his Ascent of Mount Carmel, i.e.
that once united with God the Soul's will becomes that of God's,
but he was not denounced as a heretic.

Source - Western Mystics
via No Mind's Land

~*~ 

The naked, open, loving, Self-aware, luminous Being
within, our Essential Nature, is God...
God is The Silence within us...
God is the Self...

Rupert Spira
Contemporary Non-Dual teacher

~

Photo - rainbow light on wall

Living the Balance - Sandy Jones

There is a perfect Balance between duality and non-duality.
There is a way of balance between the changing, ongoing
images of this time-space tangible world and the Living Light
of the unseen, changeless, Divine Principle, that stands behind
all things.

Living this Balance, is an inner knowing that keeps us steady,
true, strong and agile.  It is an ease and a dominion within us.
It is the perfect center within ourself.  We know it when we
find it.  It is real...  The Balance is a sweet place within, where
the heart and the soul come together.  Here, between the known
and the unknown, Something real, pure, unconditioned is found.
It is the original self...

How do we come to know this marvelous sense of Balance,
and know we know it?  How else, but by living the imbalance -
for a time.

...this Balance between the tangible world of multiplicity,
matter, time and change - and the intangible knowing, the innate
realization and understanding of the oneness of all things
[doesn't]  leave out any part of this Life.  It includes all
possibilities [all experiences].

This knowing is fearless, now enjoying the shadows,
the flickering light of this world, as part of the unfolding
beauty of it all.  The sweet balance leads us to a new way of
being and seeing, right here in the world - where Life Flows...

Sandy Jones

Excerpt from a post on her blog

~

Photo via No Mind's Land

The True Teacher - Francisco Albanez & Nisargadatta

Each day I long so much to see
The true teacher.  And each time
At dusk when I open the cabin
Door and empty the teapot,
I think I know where he is:

West of us in the forest.

Or perhaps I am the one
Who is out in the night,
The forest sand wet under
my feet, moonlight shining
On the sides of the birch trees,
The sea far off gleaming.

And he is the one who is
At home.  He sits in my chair
Calmly; he reads and prays
All night.  He loves to feel
His own body around him;

He does not leave the house.

Francisco Albanez
Original title: "The One Who is at Home"
translation by Robert Bly

~

Confide in your inner Self.
The greatest Guru is your inner Self.
Truly, he is the supreme teacher.
He alone can take you to your goal
and he alone meets you at the end of the road.
Confide in him and you need no outer Guru.

Nisargadatta

"The Chair..."

Relaxing deeply back, back,
sinking into "the chair."
It feels familiar - this chair.
It welcomes me "home"
to my Self...

Opening itself to me,
allowing me to slip deeply into
The Beloved's Silence...

I've been holding stress in the body.
"The Chair" allows it to let go,
and supports the body in the release,
like no one else can - no other person,
with their practical prescriptions,
or "fixes" propagated by the mind without
the compassion and empathy of the Heart;
who cannot respond from the Heart,
but only with empty words.
Hollow advice grasping for an "answer."
They cannot hear the cry of the Heart
that only needs to be heard and held...

It's only "The Chair"
that doesn't care who I am,
or what I know, or don't know,
or what words I use;
or how "evolved" I am;
if I am "enlightened" or "liberated";
if I shine or if I'm dark;
whether I'm Advaitan, Buddhist, Christian,
Hindu, Jew, Muslim, Sufi
or any religion, philosophy, or belief.
Only Being - just being,
without structure, concept, or label...
Only Self, sufficient in ItSelf

in "The Chair"...

It's only "The Chair"...
open, supportive, holding me in
whatever space I am in,
not trying to feed me an
intellectual "answer"
or correct my perceptions...

When I sit in this chair
I feel the tangible Presence
 of The Beloved within;
the warmth, the tingling of
the Divine Prsence
in the body
returning,
though never gone.

I feel the "connection"
with The Beloved in the body again,
though never "disconnected",
only the feeling momentarily lost.

The whole body begins to let go.
An involuntary breath deeply breathes me,
as my head gently collapses
against the back of "the chair"...

My Heart rests - soothed in "The Chair",
like a soft lap,
and finally opens like a lit orchid in a dark forest;
grieving for lost love, never really lost...

My whole body and being are fully supported
in "The Chair";
deeply at rest in the body,
in "The Chair";
fully embraced by my soft Friend -
"The Chair"

- who knew...

Mystic Meandering
July 4, 2017

~

"The Chair" is not only a literal chair that I refer to
but also becomes a metaphor for resting in
"The Beloved" - the True Friend.

_/\_

"First" (excerpt) - Chuck Surface

[.....]

First...

Turn your wandering Attention within,
and find the Self within your self...

Find it not by "thinking about" it,
But by Feeling with the Whole of your Being.
What you are, Where you are,
Before the feeling of you, the person, ever arose...

[.....]

You are the formless, unmanifest Mystery,
And... you are all that appears.
From, within, and as that Mystery,
As it moves into Creation.

Once you have poked a hole in Heaven,
It will shine into your manifest Experience,
Of space, time, and objects.
Here... in this Dream of duality.

And in time, that Wellspring in your Heart
Will Dissolve the residues
of the salt doll "self",
In those living Waters.

Knowledge... is... insufficient.
Many "know" intellectually,
That they are formless Pure Being,
But continue to "feel" themselves bound...

For such "knowledge" is nothing more than "belief."

To cut the Knot...
"Find the 'I' Feeling and rest there",

As Ramana [Maharshi] said.
Not by looking at a conceptual "picture"...

But by diving deep, in Feeling, in Experience.

Throughout the day, as you can Remember,
Turn Attention within, turn Feeling within,
And forgetting all concept, theory, and conjecture,
Investigate the nature of Where and What you are...

And Resting there...
Moved by that Ancient Longing...
Dissolve in and as The Unknowable Mystery...
That you are.

[.....]

Chuck Surface

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To read the entire poem click
here then scroll down in the left margin
to Aged Poems - which are listed alphabetically.

~

Photo - pic of clouds turned on end.