Stirrings - Author Unknown

The Cosmic skies are stirring, there is change in the air
that may awaken us to some new truths.

How beautiful that we don't yet know the way.
How beautiful that there are elements of life
that still confuse us, make us feel deeper than
we could have imagined, and remind us of
what is real and pure in our hearts.

How beautiful, that even though we don't yet
know "the way", we can spread our wings,
shift our awareness, and trust that there is a
new unfolding that is destined to come.

It is the journey of metamorphosis that we
are being guided to walk...

Whatever comes, know that it is part of how we
move through our own cycles - into the dark
night of the soul, and then finally, into spiritual
wisdom...

Sometimes we need intensity to drive the
vehicle of transformation.

While we want to remain strong and centered,
we also don't want to limit or cut ourselves off
from allowing whatever comes to move us,
change us, and transform us.

We have to remember to keep shifting our
awareness of what life is and what role we are
here to play; to allow ourselves to keep questioning,
to keep allowing things to shock and surprise us, for
they are often the fuel for our continued unfolding.

Author Unknown
found on Facebook

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Peace...

 Even in the midst of chaos there is Peace...
Even in the midst of complexity there is Simplicity...
Even in the midst of confusion there is Stability...

Stay rooted in your Eternal Nature at the 
Core of your Being...

MM

The sack of insignificant things...

I was carrying items of no significance in a sack,
roaming through a house with many different rooms,
looking for something I couldn't identify...

I was having trouble seeing, kept squinting, kept
trying to open my eyes more and more to the "Truth",
but everything remained a blur...

Unable to see clearly, unable to focus,
I just looked down into my sack of insignificant things,
 and saw there ideas and beliefs I didn't need,
but had held onto - on many levels.

Bewildered, I wondered why I continued to carry
the sack of insignificant things... and kept wandering
through the house.

Room to room, belief to belief,
looking for the "answers"
that I thought I lacked...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 15, 2019

~

This came from a dream I had recently...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Conflict - David Skitt

A Commentary on Krishnamurti's POV on the world

Conflict and violence Krishnamurti sees as issues of basic concern...
But in his view history shows there has been a repeated failure
of education, science, politics and organized religion to end them.
What is needed in our time therefore is to own up to that failure,
to make a clean sweep of all these past, defective endeavors,
and to adopt an entirely new approach.  It is hard to imagine taking
a more radical position than this: Put aside everything you have
 learned from others, ever read, and start your own inquiry into
what life is about, what really matters.  Stand on your own two
feet.  Stop being a second-hand human being.

He proposes that this means looking at what is actually
happening in life and in our consciousness - 'what is, not what
should be' - without condemning or justifying, without resisting
or wanting to change it, holding it instead 'like a precious jewel.'
In doing so, he says, we are looking at human consciousness,
not just our own.

A constant source of human confusion, in Krishnamurti's view,
is our rooted tendency to make images of ourselves, others, and
of life and death that are put together by thought based on memory,
on past experiences or hearsay.  Instead of looking afresh at what is
new in the now, being open to the unknown, and unpredictable, we
'translate the present into the past.'  He sees such images are
inevitably conflictual because they are time-bound and therefore
partial and inadequate.  Yet we frequently act as though we are
programmed by them.

Krishnamurti maintains that we fail to make the most of our
mind and our life while subject to latent or manifest anger and fear.
Also, our sense of self is usually experienced as inherently [separate]
from another's, whereas all human beings share far more
psychologically than separates them.  Not to see that is a huge error
of perception, because our sense of shared humanity is lost. This
feeling of psychological [separateness] breeds a fear of isolation
that leads, among other things, to a spurious sense of safety in
numbers, which is then, unfortunately and divisively, carried to
excess in nationalism, political ideology, and religious [fanaticism].
These provide a false cohesion held together by fear that there
are those 'outside' who threaten us and are in some way not as fully
human as we are.

Seeing the problems in our personal life and in the world with a
mind free from the dictates of the past, from faith, belief,
stereotyping, and fantasy, is to see that what goes wrong in the
world outside reflects what goes wrong in one's own mind.  This
is the share of all men, of all humanity, unless we all change,
each one of us, change to something that is not projected by thought.
Where there is insight into that, Krishnamurti says, there is a wholly
different way of living, in which an awakened awareness of what
causes human suffering also brings with it greater sensitivity to the
beauty and immensity of life.

David Skitt

KFT.org

via - No Mind's Land

Yearning - Rumi

One night a man was crying,
Allah! [God] Allah! [God]

His lips grew sweet with the praying,
until a cynic said,
'So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?'

The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.

'Why did you stop praying?' [Khidr asked]

'Because I've never heard anything back.'

[Kidhr said]

 This longing you express
is the return message.

The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness that wants help
is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs no one knows the names of.

Give your life to be one of them.

Rumi
Original title: "Love Dogs"

~

Yearn for more.

...don't linger in any spiritual benefit
you have gained,
but yearn for more,
like one suffering from illness
whose thirst for water is never quenched...

Rumi

Riding A Pale Horse...

A Pale Horse of an unpredictable destiny
arrived at my door recently;
an intense illness,
causing the body to feel disembodied
and disconnected from Source...

It invited me to ride...

I was anxious, unsure of where it would take me.
But I had no choice,
I had to ride;
to ride the illness out - half willingly, half resisting.

Strangely, all awareness of "Presence" vanished.
as if I had been cowled to the Truth
that I had "known" for so long -
or thought I knew -
that ultimately we are Pure Awareness...
But "I" was caught in the body-mechanism
and its struggle...

Frightened

I rode - as if in a weird dream,
through a strange land of un-awareness,
while still *trying* to be aware
of "The Truths"
that I had known...

But they eluded my senses, my awareness, my mind -
even my Heart...

Confused

I rode for 3 weeks - empty,
until, fatigued,
I faintly felt the exuberance and euphoria of Life
bubble up from within...
The veil of un-awareness had briefly lifted...
and with it, the shattering of all certainties
I once held to be true;
a burning away of the dross
in the alchemy of fever...

The fever broke
and I relaxed...

into Gratitude...

just Gratitude...

- and breathed...

Sometimes that's all you can do...

fall into Gratitude and Breathe...

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
January 27, 2017

Follow Your Own Footsteps - Nepo & Machado

Every time we talk to someone,
there comes back to us a map of expectation
as to how we should respond.

We share a confusion;
we are often given direction.

We share a pain;
we are often given an instruction.

We share a desire:
we are often given a plan.

The power of these unspoken maps
should not be underestimated.
For the endless gravities of expectation
we move in and out of govern most of our
thinking and summon most of our energy
in denying them or complying with them.

In actuality, underneath all the plans,
pressures, and expectations,
underneath all the subtle guidance and nudging,
the next step is truly unknown... [and our own].

Thus, our spiritual charge is
to maintain the wonder of the singular explorer
that each of us is...

The freshest step has always come when
we are brave enough to land at the end
of what little we know,
breathing in new air,
in reaction to no one,
in wonder at
  what is...

Mark Nepo
From: The Book of Awakening

(Mark's words, my format)

~*~

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road,
and nothing more...

Wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking...

Antonio Machado

~

Photo - taken by my father
c. 1952/53
his own footsteps

Simply - Love...

Come into Peace...

Even in the midst of chaos there is Love...
Even in the midst of complexity there is Love...
Even in the midst of confusion there is Love...

In everything there is Love...

In life and in death
we are held deep within the Great Heart.
All that matters is that we know
we are loved...


Mystic Meandering
2006

~*~

It is not the work of love to change people,
or force their growth in our direction.
The work of love depends on giving
others a sense safety, nurturing their
confidence to lean into life
and into the unknown...

Mark Nepo
From: A Thousand Ways to Listen

The Portal of Wholeness - Matt Licata

At times, you may be asked to travel into the very groundless and contradictory landscape of the emotional world, without any understanding of what is being asked of you.  It is so open here, but simultaneously disorienting to the mind that is longing for answers.  It is as if everything you were so sure about only days before has fallen away…

Unmetabolized feelings, orphaned sensations, and vivid images are surging in the somatic field, seeming disconnected and…..chaotic.  But things are not always as they seem as you approach the threshold of wholeness. The invitation has been made: trust in the process of disintegration and the intelligence of immediate experience.

Yes, it may always be disturbing to stay embodied to the burning feelings and sensations that appear alongside the dissolution of old dreams and the way you thought it was all going to turn out.  But in the commitment to meet what is appearing with presence, you may discover that this destruction is sacred, unbearably creative, and soaked with reorganizing wisdom.

Before you turn from the confusion and scramble to transform or heal it with learned process, open into the uncertainty, the hopelessness, and the breaking of your heart.  It is there you will find life, longing to erupt and shatter the dream of partiality [fragmentation].  For each visitor of the inner and outer worlds is unfolding in the radiant [moment] as an unprecedented portal of wholeness…

Matt Licata

~

Photo - reflection of the sky on the hood of a car
Photo upside down :)

Confusion - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

“There is no end to this dynamic mystical journey

that leads to the beyond…

The wayfarer has to learn to leave behind the old understanding
and allow what is new to become known…

The journey Home has another dimension,
a deeper direction.
I have had to face the illusion of my own journey,
how I was caught in certain convictions,
especially spiritual convictions.

Now I sense something else,
a swirling quality
that carries
confusion,
chaos,
and
freedom

Always the journey, [&] the path changes.
Always we are thrown into something
beyond what we might have expected.

Now I sense something else,
something that was always at the borders
of consciousness…
and yet avoided in its intensity.
A quality of chaos envelopes me from within…
the chaos of life
and what is beyond life…

Where does the path go,
what strange byways does it follow?
Always we look for a sense of direction.
Are we going Home?

Is this the right path?
Are we in tune?

But the path is much deeper
and more ancient than any sense of direction.
It belongs to the timeless inner dimension…

~

There is a choice…
We can follow the ego
with all its subtleties of
self-defense.

We can walk away from our heart’s call…
And so the path dissolves,
its urgency hidden,
its demand neglected….

But how can the path ever be lost?

The path is a strange creature,
full of the unexpected,
born from the unexpected,
attempting to take us into the
unknown,
into the unknowable.

And always we want the security
of knowing,
and so our fear of the dark
betrays us...

What is this path,
this empty way?

There is a heartache,
a call,
and a sigh that comes from
the depth.

These are the signs,
but where do they lead?

Why do we expect something
tangible…?

Why do we look for
reassurance
when we stand at the water’s edge?

Follow your heart’s call – but where?

Deep within we sense the terror of an endless night
and will make sure that our path skirts around this
desolate place.
We may hear the phrase
”to die before you die,”
but what do we know of this ultimate desolation?

The path will take us to the water’s edge,
and may even provide us with the illusion
of a boat, with the fantasy of a further shore,
but really these are just mind games and
psychological gimmicks.
There is no spiritual board game,
no path to enlightenment,
because “The Beloved”
comes “like a thief in the night”…

~

Why do we look for answers?
Why do we try to dress with the right clothes
for the journey, the correct spiritual attitude,
when we need to be unprotected?

So many stories have been told,
books written, pictures painted,
and always we skirt around the edge,
frightened of facing the depth
of our longing….

Sorrow, endless sorrow is what we are given to work with,
to open us, to take us, to silence us…
This endless sorrow has oceans of joy
hidden within it, the joy that is life itself,
the hidden face of creation.

This joy is not a flimsy alternative to life,
not life skating on the surface,
but the intensity of emptiness
pouring into form,
“The Beloved”
manifesting.

Hungry for what is Real,
we know neither our self
nor the chaos that awaits us.
We like to think we are spiritual seekers,
lovers, wayfarers…

But what is there to name?

Those who remain behind carry names;
they carry banners of their own inner development,
their spiritual or worldly success.
They know who they are, and are
resplendit in their own recognition.

The lost are not like this;

all they have known is emptiness
and a hunger.

Maybe they have had experiences,
glimpses of the beyond.
But the real journey is beyond
any such knowing,
is too simple to be explained,

too ordinary to be noticed,
and far too intense to be talked about.

There are things that can never be said,
perhaps because they are too intimate,
too painful, too bewildering, or just
unspeakable…

It is not someone else’s experience,
but a vortex of undoing
into which I am drawn
or thrown.”

Excerpts from: Fragments of a Love Story

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic



Please Note: I have taken excerpts from various pages
in the book, putting them together in the form of this prose poem.


Photo: Vortex Art