A Bridge Between - Michael Meade

In old traditions those who acted as elders were considered to
have one foot in daily life and the other foot in the otherworld.
Elders acted as a bridge between the visible world and the
unseen realms of spirit and soul.  A person in touch with the
otherworld stands out because something normally invisible
can be seen through them.  The old word for having a foot in
each world is weird - originally spelled "wyrd."  The original sense
 of weird involved both fate and destiny.  Becoming weird
enough to be wise requires that a person learn to accommodate
 the strange way they are shaped within and aimed at the world.

An old idea suggests that those seeking an elder ["teacher"]
should look for someone weird enough to be wise. 
 For just as there can be no general wisdom, there are no
 "normal" elders.  Normal bespeaks the "norms" that society
uses to regulate people, whereas an awakened destiny always
involves connections to the weird and the warp of life.  In Norse
mythology, as in Shakespeare, the Fates appear as the Weird
Sisters who hold time and the timeless together.

Those who would become truly wise must become weird enough
to be in touch with timeless things and abnormal enough to 
follow the guidance of the unseen.  Elders are supposed to be
weird, not simply "weirdos," but strange and unusual in meaningful
ways.  Elders are supposed to be more in touch with the 
otherworld, but not out of touch with the struggles of this world.

Elders have one foot firmly in the ground of survival and another
in the realm of great imagination.  This double-minded stance
serves to help the living community and even help the species.

Michael Meade
About Elders

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Spiritual Egos - Fred LaMotte

Spiritual egos make a distinction between "beginners techniques"
and "advanced techniques."  Their intellect wants something
difficult to do, a sense of accomplishment.  That is why so
many new age teachers speak of their spiritual "work."  Do
they ever speak of their spiritual "play"?

Ease is the cure for dis-ease.  The deepest, most healing
spiritual practice, we ease into.  In fact, we do not practice.
We let go of practice.

The goal is never an achievement done by "advanced" practice,
but the dissolution of the do-er.  It is known by un-knowing and
done by un-doing.  This can only happen to the effortless.  The
most powerful meditation is the simplest, the most natural.

When you really look at people who carry a bag of "advanced"
techniques, you often see a weariness behind the stiff mask of
their perpetual smile. Of they look tentative, because they are
always taking the next step, and never completely here.  Only
the beginner dwells in eternal freshness...  The beginner is never
 advanced because she is present.

In the deepest and most natural meditation, you never have to
leave your body.  Every atom of your body is already woven out
of swirling stars....  No wind can uproot the beginner.  No
wound can puncture the intergalactic stillness of the Beginner's
core.

Transcending your body is not an advanced practice. It is a practice
of disconnection. That is why, in the Anapanasati Sutra, the Buddha
said, "Awareness of body in the body."  He did not say,
"Transcend the body."  He said to grok the body from within the body,
for consciousness and matter are one energy,
every cell and photon trembling with the sap of awareness.

...be a beginner.  Always feel the freshness of the first day of creation.
Now is the beginning.  Now is the end of time.  How could "now" be
advanced?

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - MM 
the two faces of Pumpkin Head :)

 

The Well at the Core of Your Soul - Fred LaMotte

The golden wellspring of your intuition is the true Master,
the true Guru, the true spiritual Friend.  Any "spiritual teacher"
or guide who does not lead you to this well [within], and
invite you to drink from it, is no one to follow.  Why should
you pay money, or give away your power, to someone to tell
you what you can only learn from your own intuition?  When
the true Teacher reveals the wellspring at the core of your
being, he, or she, walks away silently, and leaves you to gaze
into the waters of your own infinite Shakti, the unfathomable
healing waters of your power.....the trembling ripples of silence
into the stars.

And when you want to sit with that Teacher, or with the Christ,
or with any of the Rishis, you will find them here, sitting by
the well.  Not in any temple or ashram, but here, in the golden
radiance of the hollow spring at the core of your soul...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Spiritual Boutiques" - Fred LaMotte

 Why plant plastic flowers?
The fragrance of one silent rose
roars louder than a thousand suns.
At night, candles appear to shine,
but where is their glory
when dawn breaks open the sky?
You waste your money
in the market place of spiritual teachers.
Each of them has a little boutique.
But which one has a root or thread,
a lineage leading to the ancient weavers?
Can any of them spin this world
into the weft of stars?
Isn't it time to close up
these shops in your mind?
Wander out beyond the maintained trail.
The wilderness is nearer than you think,
closer than breathing.
Go there, meet your oldest Friend,
the one who whispers your true name
after all those centuries of being
faithful to forgetfulness.
Every time you said, "I believe,"
you fell a little deeper asleep.
Now is your chance to get lost and wake up.
Find true darkness.
The Beloved will use your bones for kindling,
your blood for a spark to light the wildering
blaze of his [Her] Face in your chest.

...that Face becomes your face...
The roar you hear is not a plastic flower.
It is the fragrance of one silent rose.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Photo - Mystic Meandering

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

True Center - Ivan Granger

Sages of all lands keep reminding us that the spiritual journey
is a journey of awareness, and specifically Self-awareness.
It is not a journey of acquisition.
Or intellect.
Or adherence to rules.

It is not a matter of how many books we're read.
Or how many times we've read them.
The only question of any value is whether we've yet
recognized their truths... within ourselves.

It is not a matter of how often we pray.
Or how perfectly we enunciate each prescribed word.
The question is, have we discovered how true prayer
wells up within us of its own accord.

We may not approach the spiritual path as a matter of
superficial actions or brittle creeds,
but we also can become swept up in endless new ideas,
new flashes of insight, new pathways, new teachers.
This can lead to a culture of lifelong seeking that becomes
our comfort zone;
a culture that takes on the form of religion (or spirituality)
without actually discovering the true center...
What we seek is found only and always
in the Heart of the heart...

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

(Ivan's words, my format)

~

Photo - Mandala Art digitally altered

Guru At My Door

I have wanted a personal guru for some time now. You know, one you can sit across from, face to face, and ask all the questions that you have ever thought to ask; to be instructed in the ways of life, meditation & spiritual navigation. These days you can get at least a part of this from reading and listening to “spiritual teachers” in their books, or on tape, CD and DVD, Internet satsang, and so forth. But of course I want the real deal to show up at my door. When the student is ready the teacher will come, kind of thing. I am unable to travel to places like India, or even attend local satsang with itinerant teachers due to various physical and health issues. It just never seems to work for me. But I often wish a guru would come to my door and instill me with their wisdom… The “mystic” identity dies hard…

Today, as I was hanging a load of laundry in our guest bathroom, the clothes I didn’t want to run through the drier, I heard the doorbell ring, so I went down the stairs and opened the front door. A small, stocky middle aged man with a baseball type cap on was standing there holding a clipboard and a plastic bag with a Schwans logo on it. Now - we have a “no soliciting” sign posted at the entrance to the walkway that leads to the front door. So of course I’m feeling a little irritated that this solicitor evidently couldn’t read the sign. And I can imagine the disgusted look on my face. I know, I’ve seen it in the mirror looking back at me and it’s not a welcoming sight! It says you have crossed my boundary, back away slowly, which might have explained his somewhat cowered look. But he was brave enough to ask if I would be interested in anything from Schwans. (Schwans, for anyone who doesn’t know delivers prepackaged, frozen food items to your door.)

When he spoke, the loveliest East Indian accent poured forth from his being and I melted. I don’t understand why this happens to me. My husband knows a woman from Nepal and I discovered that I can’t stop crying when she talks to me. Strange but true, so I don’t talk to her very often…

Anyway, I am now intrigued by this little man from India who I was able to discover has lived here since 1995 and obviously trying to make a living for his family. I am not interested in pre-packaged, frozen foods, but I am interested in hearing his lilting Indian accent. So I ask if he’s from India – duh – but he politely answers and asks me if I have ever been there, to which I reply, “No, but I have some spiritual friends who have. “Oh yes”, he replies, “there ar a lot of spiritual peopel dere.” I then boldly ask him if he meditates. To which he replies, “Oh yes, I medi-tate evry-dey. Dhats the only wey to get through the dey, otherwise I would do stupid tings.” I laughingly said, “Well I meditate too, but I still do stupid things.” With that he broke into laughter while covering his mouth with his hand, for politeness I assume. But I could see the twinkle in his eyes, and am assuming my face softened as we made our connection.

I still didn’t want the foods he was selling, but he took my name “just in case,” and gave me his personal number on a Schwans’ receipt. His name was Raj. We both broke away from the encounter wishing the other a good day. I closed the door and went back to hanging up the laundry. I found myself wanting to go running out the door after him. I pictured myself running after him calling out wait, wait, come back, come and talk some more! Come tell me of your wisdom, of what you know, of what the universe is about… Come, let’s sit on the cushion together… But alas he was gone, my little guru, who in our brief encounter put a smile back in my heart and on my face, and reminded me that meditating was a good way to get through the day. After all, isn’t that what gurus are for, to remind you how to navigate through life! I now hope he stops by again just to check and see if I want anything, or rather, so I can hear that lyrical voice that brightened my heart.

While I understand that gurus don’t literally show up at your door – necessarily. It is my experience that when I am “ready” to see something that I need to see, I will find the “guru” that I need, in different forms. For instance, 2 years ago, when I was ready to understand where the mind goes when it’s not in the present moment, I found Richard Moss’ book, The Mandala of Being and his online e-courses (http://www.richardmoss.com/). Last August I re-discovered Adyashanti in the form of his radio satsang broadcasts for a sense of clarity (http://www.adyashanti.org/). And in December I found Scott Kiloby’s book: Love’s Quiet Revolution – The End of the Spiritual Search, when I was ready to see that I had been trapped in my personal story, the story of “me”, the dream self. (http://www.kiloby.com/)

When we’re ready the “teacher” does comes.

Who’s knocking at your door?

Heart Smiles, MeANderi
http://www.aserenitysanctuary.com/