It All Dissolves - Frank Ostaseski

 Earth dissolves into water.  Water dissolves into fire.
Fire dissolves into air.  Air dissolves into space.

Dying [Dissolving], in many cases, does not happen all of
a sudden.  It is a gradual process of withdrawing from life
in form.

When I speak of the four elements dissolving, I am not
speaking exactly of physical form.  Rather, I am pointing to
the ineffable but observable animating qualities...
The animating qualities also dissolve - apparently missing
when we are left only with the heaviness of the corpse
after death.

There is something beyond the four elements - the spirit,
soul, or animating presence.  The inner dissolution happens
simultaneously.  Our medical instruments and devices can
certainly measure the physical disintegration, but the inner
dissolution that happens simultaneously is subtle and still...

They are all dissolving - the elements and their associated
states and as a result, the self is dissolving as well.  This is
happening all the time, we just see it at the surface at the
time of dying.

Now who are you?

Fragility and impermanence are in the nature of life.  It's
all always coming together and falling apart - not just the
physical properties of life - and not just at the time of death.

Our sense of self is impermanent.  While illness can contract
us into an even smaller sense of self, many people who are
sick and dying speak of no longer being limited by the 
previous boundaries of their old, familiar identities.

We come to embody much wider identities.  The interior
life and the external world permeate each other,
they commingle.

Frank Ostaseski
The Five Invitations

~

With thanks Death Deconstructed for the photo...

Living the Fantasy of Becoming - Jim Harrison

 Nowhere is it the same place as yesterday.
None of us is the same person as yesterday.
We finally die from the exhaustion of becoming.

This downward cellular jubilance is shared
by the winds, bugs, birds, bears and rivers,
and perhaps the black holes in galactic space
where our souls will all be gathered in an invisible
thimble of antimatter.  But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

We whirl with the earth, catching our breath
as someone else, our soft brains ill-trained
except to watch ourselves disappear into the distance.

Still, we love to make music of this puzzle.

Jim Harrison

from: Saving Daylight

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

"Only the rocks live forever."

James Michner
from - Centennial

 

Insistent Grace - Stephen Levine & Ivan Granger

 There is a grace approaching
that we shun as much as death,
it is the completion of our birth.

It does not come in time,
but in timelessness
when the mind sinks into the heart
and we remember.

It is an insistent grace that draws us
to the edge and beckons us surrender
safe territory and enter our enormity.

We know we must pass
beyond knowing
and fear the shedding.

But we are pulled upward
none-the-less
through forgotten ghosts
and unexpected angels,
luminous.

And there is nothing left to say
but we are That.

Stephen Levine
Original title: "Millennium Blessing"

via Death Deconstructed

~

Commentary by Ivan Granger

Most of us spend our entire lives avoiding that inner opening.
Most of the time it is a quiet itch at the back of the awareness
we squirm and turn away from.  And when it really presses
on us, it can inspire terror, as if we were facing death.

It is the death of our old world view, the death of patterned
awareness, the death of our limited notion of who we are.  All
we thought ourselves to be stops - and so it is a sort of death.
To feel that grace approaching, to welcome it, requires a sort
of courage.

It requires courage, and surrender.  We have this idea that
spiritual opening is a terrible effort... No...  That unfolding
wants to occur within us.  The only effort is to let go of our
endless strategies to halt the process.  We all feel it, a gentle
prodding to let the heart open, to know ourselves truly, to be
present and radiate ourselves into the world.  It is insistent,
trying to happen within us.  Call it grace, if you like.  The
question presented to us: Do we courageously accept the
invitation or not?

For those of us who live in contemporary society, how hard
it is to stop the ticking of the clock?  From such an early age
we internalize the sense of time and progress and deadlines.
Yet, in doing so, we forget that these are all just concepts,
just one way to understand the unfolding of being and
experience.  That sense of time is a powerful tool for doing
and accomplishment, but it isn't inherently "real."  It doesn't
have much to do with who or what we are.  There is a flow of
days and months, but they are the surface current of a much
deeper timelessness.

It's fascinating how we use the hyperactivity of thought to
define the world, to frame our perception of the world, and
in some ways to limit our notion of the world.  The other
thing about thought:  It creates time.  When thought settles
down, we discover timelessness.  And as the poet says, the
mind comes to rest, not in the head, but in the heart.

And we remember.  It is not through intellection but through
stillness that we remember.  Look at the word "remember."
Re-member.  To remember is to finally see how apparently
separated reality actually fits together in a single body.
Discursive thought can only ever examine pieces of the whole.
To remember is to have the full vision of Wholeness, as
things actually are.  But this vision is found in timelessness
and stillness, through the quiet mind unfiltered.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Go Lightly - Aldous Huxley

It's dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly.  Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Lightly, lightly - it's the best advice ever given me.
When it comes to dying even.
Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic.
No rhetoric, no tremolos,
no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated
imitations...
And of course, no theology, no metaphysics.
Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.

So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That's why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage,
not even a sponge bag,
completely unencumbered.

Aldous Huxley
Island

~

Photo - through window at night...

"Leaving" - Wehrman

Could he, he asked again,
walk out into the desert
of himself, let his self go.
the one built by the labor
of lifetimes - this one -
drop away into the ageless
void; and as he asked, he
knew; this is what it comes
to anyway, tonight as he
slept, or tomorrow, as the
result of old age, a natural
death, that waited closer
each day, a wordless chant,
it will all go, all of it,
castles and skyscrapers of
who you are, who you built
yourself to be; it ends at
the end - that's the idea - you
step from here, your
construction, into there,
the body abandoned - and
you saw it was not a despair,
but a ship to be boarded,
unmoored.....
free.....

Richard Wehrman
From: Being Here

When laughing overcomes you - V.B. Price

art by Carole Leslie

Making room in your mind
for life without your mind

closed shut,
allowing all you are

to see you
where you are,

you feel the free light
behind you

is inside you
sensing Death.

Mind, the Divine,
are all the same.

What's in a name?
Death is the rest.

Open up, give it room,

let it breathe

the fear right out of you;
it is what's left of you,

it is you, free of you,
knowing you

like the truth
you know

when laughing
overcomes you.

Vincent B. Price
From Death Self

~

"laughing overcame me" reading the first two lines.
I turn 69 soon and am already
beginning to "live life without my mind" - or much
of it anyway, but not in the sense that VB Price means,
I don't think ;)  It's the aging process, not because of
some "spiritual" realization.  Memory banks are failing,
cognitive and comprehension fading.  I'm in geezerland
now, where the workings of the mind are less and less
a "problem" by nature :D  Not in the sense of purposely
"letting go" of the mind, which I found impossible anyway...
And yet, it is true it seems that it is still
"you, free of you, knowing you"
as Price writes...

_/\_

Namaste

Love Awaits You - Christiane Singer

When there is nothing left,
when you are on your last adventure,
in deteriorating descent,
[from disease/illness]
the mystery of suffering
[is that it] takes you to transparency
where there is only Love...
...liberates the power of Love...
in our lives...

All the dams break and
there is nothing but Love
all around you...


At the end of the worst,
Love awaits you...

There is nothing to fear
...receive Love...

Love is not an emotion,
it is the substance of life itself.

Christiane Singer
French Writer/Novelist

Excerpts from her video
"The Gifts of Suffering"

~

She writes:

I wrote a book on Les Ages de la vie.  I tried to show these
metamorphoses of being in the course of life.  It is obvious
that all this is only valid if one has learned to die in the course
of existence.  And these occasions are given us so often.
All crises, separations, and diseases, and all forms,
everything, everything, everything,
all invites us to learn and leave behind.
Death will take away only what we wanted to possess.
The rest, it has no hold on the rest.
And it is in this progressive deprivation that an
 immense freedom is created...

Christiane died of Cancer in 2007 at the age of 64

My Grandmother's Mandala...

I have many memories of my grandmother crocheting
doilies and table cloths with fine cotton threads.
  She taught me, but mine never came out like hers.
 I have many of the ones she made.
  This one I have on my little meditation table.

As I was lighting the candle and striking the bowl the other day, I noticed it underneath, although it has been there all along, and saw how it was really like a mandala – made of interwoven threads.  I remembered the movement of my grandmother’s small, gentle hands and how the crochet hook would dip and pull each loop of thread through so quickly and easily.  I remembered the soft, contented look on her face as she crocheted, following an unending rhythm.  It was easy to be in her presence – connecting in the silence of our hearts.  The crocheted “mandala” also reminded me of how intricately woven her wheel of life was, of which I was only a thread.  Her wrinkle in time lasted 93 years. 

We wrote letters back and forth to each other when I was a teenager and young adult, when she moved to Maine and then Southern California; sharing a special bond.  Her ripple in time was absorbed back into the Ocean of Being nearly 15 years ago. 

~*~

“The Silence which is not the silence of the ending…
is only a beginning.
It is like going through a small hole
to an enormous,
wide expansive ocean,
to an immeasurable, timeless state…”

J. Krishnamurti

“Death is only for the imagined separate self.
…..for who you truly are there is no death.”

Jeff Foster

Read the whole article:
 “Why there is no death”

~*~

Top Photo - Color Invert
Gives the affect of the Ocean
behind the doilie,
which is actually the
grain of the wood…

In Preparation...

I received an article in the Non-Duality Highlights Newsletter and I thought I’d share an excerpt from it. For me it is a good reminder of how to “prepare” for this upcoming life experience – our “second journey” as B calls it. I find I’m not as prepared for this as I thought I would be. A myriad of emotions are flooding this system. This heart is not so brave after-all. Oh I have my “plan” of being a “pioneering woman”, independent, on my own, living a contemplative life, adventurous – pursuing art, photography, meditation, writing, as well as doing all the mundane things that need to be “caught up on” around here – paying attention to house and heart that have been neglected over the years. But the heart is not ready for a “pioneering life” yet. It seems there is some preparation needed as layers of submerged feelings are beginning to release in waves. Last night I had a nightmare, or so I’m told. I don’t remember it. Evidently I’m already tapping into the well of hidden material that is rising to the surface “in preparation.” I knew it would come, just not this soon. I am not one to apply “positive think”, but this article gave me a clue as to how I might approach this new experience with its inherent uprising of feelings.

The article itself is an excerpt from a book called: Beyond the Separate Self – The End of Anxiety and Mental Suffering by Colin Drake.

Here’s the excerpt:

“What is required is a paradigm shift which will change [how one sees] the moment to moment experience… The easiest way to do this is to enquire into the nature of life, which entails investigating experience itself:

1. [Become aware that] ‘Life is just a series of moment-to-moment experiences.’

2. Any moment of experience has only three elements: thoughts, sensations, and awareness of these thoughts and sensations.

3.Thoughts and sensations are ephemeral, that is they come and go, are ‘things’ that are perceived.

4.Awareness is the constant subject, the ‘perceiver’ of thoughts and sensations and that which is always present.

5. All thoughts and sensations appear in awareness, exist in awareness, and subside back into awareness. Before any particular thought or sensation there is effortless awareness of ‘what is’: the sum of all thoughts and sensations occurring at any given instant. During the thought or sensation in question, there is effortless awareness of it within ‘what is’. Then when it has gone there is still effortless awareness of ‘what is.’

6. So the body/mind is experienced as a flow of ephemeral objects appearing in this awareness. Any external object or thing is experienced as a combination of thought and sensation. It is awareness of these thoughts and sensations that constitutes our experience.

7. Therefore, this awareness is the constant substratum in which all things appear to arise, exist and subside. All living things rely on awareness of their environment to exist and their behaviour is directly affected by this. Thus this awareness exists at a deeper level than body/mind (and matter/energy) and we are this awareness!

8. This does not mean that at a surface level we are not the mind and body, for they arise in, are perceived by and subside back into awareness, which is the deepest and most fundamental level of our being. If we choose to identify with this deepest level – awareness – rather than the surface level - mind/body - then thoughts and sensations are seen for what they truly are – just ephemeral objects which come and go, leaving awareness itself totally unaffected..."

~~~~~

I am also reminded by this that my “preparation” is really about getting back to the basics: awareness, openness, allowing and trusting. Bringing awareness to my experience, with its inherent feelings – and – bringing awareness to the inherent Awareness in which this life-experience is occurring; being open to seeing Life unfolding ItSelf in all of this experience through the viewfinder of Awareness – allowing it all; trusting this innate sense of Beingness that lives here – that lives this Life that is living ItSelf here; and REMEMBERing that That is who “I” am within this whirlwind of thought, feeling, and emotion…

At this point life is a blur, as I am beginning to experience this experience as a “death” of sorts; a death of a way of life, its conditionings and attachments – with the necessary losses, sadness and grief that accompanies that; as well as the anxiety and uncertainty for a life-experience yet to be lived. Yet I know that this “death” that is about to occur is absolutely necessary for the Kindling of Life…

Once again stepping into the unknown…

~*~


For a wonderful piece on “story” read the post at
Grace Is Now

Nature's Window

Golden Silence

whispering in the wind

the song of living death...

A beauteous leaving...

Die into Life again and again...

~*~

"Die while you are alive..."
Shido Bonan
Japanese Zen Master

The Pull of Consciousness Window

For the last month I have been experiencing a huge pull from within; an intense version of the “Inside-Out” experience that I referred to in the “Inside-Out” post. It is what a friend called “the pull of Consciousness.” I have described it in my journal as a “pull to Freedom.” It’s as if Consciousness ItSelf pulls ‘self’ into ItSelf, essentially reclaiming Itself. Consequently there is a sense of collapse of the ‘outer’ into the Inner, or the outer dissolving *in* the Inner.

This “outer” expression – self - is losing its sense of separateness from the “Inner” and seems to be collapsing *into* that which doesn’t have a name: into Unknowable Beingness - into the Mystery - into the NO-thing-ness - into Existence prior to expression; sinking into the space of Awareness – dissolving – falling into Freedom, the recognition of the Freedom of Awareness. Well almost. :) It feels a little like alchemy. There’s a process going on here – a process of recognition, of Seeing how things really are: That it is not that *I* am ‘That’, but that *That* is all there is! – undisturbed Aware Consciousness… Whew, what a ride!

Although this may all *sound* wonderfully blissful, this “pull of Consciousness” vortex actually feels like a death – a death that is also a birthing. There is a *deep* sense of surrender – of succumbing actually - to this inner pull of Awareness; not necessarily to the “present moment”, or to “life as it is”, but to the Tao – the Flow – the movement of Aware Consciousness within, and how *It* wants to Flow. There is a willingness here to move with this pull of Consciousness on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis; a willingness to not be able to see where I’m going or how I’m getting there; to not seek relief – but to just be with this experience and allow it to go where it does until it pulls ‘me’ (Itself) all the way through...

And it’s not so much the death of ‘self’ (me) as it is death of the *perception* of self – a dissolving of orientation, of thought patterns, of identities, of attachments. It’s a “surrender” - a “succumbing” - of all that was held in this system of separation before. It is not “awakening,” it is a dying into Reality.

This “death” is like the famous metaphor of the wave sinking back into the Ocean - finding The Rhythm again, finding the calm resonance within the Rhythm of the Ocean of Awareness – Home. The wave cannot move *except* for the Rhythm of the Ocean within. So I follow the pull into quiet Awareness – most of the time :).

For brief moments, here and there, there is a dissolving of perceptions, where I recognize that I am not the body-mind. But patterns of the body-mind, of the “me,” are still working themselves through. They are rising to the surface. And there is a tendency to want to suppress them. But the need to be swallowed up by Awareness – to fall into Freedom is greater – most of the time :).

Abandoning the *idea* of a separate ‘self’, the scaffolding of the ‘self’, for THIS, this spacious Awareness that dances *through* conceptual reality is Freedom. Yet, there is not the *sense* of being freed *from* anything. There is only the recognition, however brief at the moment, that the pull of Consciousness is a pull to Freedom – inner Freedom. It is recognizing that Awareness is Freedom; that Consciousness aware of ItSelf is Freedom.

~*~

“…pure Consciousness will pull you back. It is not that you will enter it… but when It pulls you It has made the choice to pull you Home…..This is Home, the holy company of the Self. The most holy association is to be as you are [the Self] – this is Freedom.” Papaji

~*~


FunQi Art™ - Christine

I can’t take full credit for this art looking like it does.
The original is a beautiful shade of blue,
(which I will post on the next blog post). When I took the picture,
with a light shining on the picture and the flash of the camera,
this is the way it came out! Almost ethereal… Amazing…
I was awestruck. My husband explained the science of it:
The picture is only a mirror of the light that shines on it.
It can only reflect the light that comes to it…
Hmmmmm….