Our Path is Clearing - Ari Honarvar

 We are wondrous, complex, and resilient beings.
At any given moment, our bodies, minds and the
environment interact with and influence one another.
When we're able to balance these interactions, the result
is harmony,  However, living in this hyper-stimulating and
[chaotic] world, harmony can become compromised, and
after a while we become ripe for disease and disorientation.
The uncomfortable symptoms of disharmony are then often
confused with the root cause, and in our rush to escape
the uncomfortable emotions and sensations, we seek
distractions in the world...

But our wisdom and innate vitality await us and beckon us
to return to ourselves.  When we do our inherent wisdom
shines light on the origin of disharmony, clearing the path...
We can bring back harmony and take responsibility of the
magnificence that is us.  Having cleared the distractions,
life becomes simple again and our path is clear...

Ari Honarvar
From - Rumi's Gift

~

Personal Note -  Now that we have hopefully been
relieved of the political drama and DisTraction of the
last 4 years, maybe we can individually and collectively
find a new sense of balance and harmony.  Clear the
toxicity of chaos, and focus on the priorities of our
collective existence in the ongoing Cosmic Play of Life.

Namaste
_/\_

~

Photo - Sunrise at Sunday River Ski Resort
in Bethel, Maine - taken by my brother on
ski patrol

Crossing a Threshold...

I am about to cross a threshold into 63…  The numbers don’t bother me actually.  It’s the little things that are happening in this body and mind…  I’m actually surprised I made it this far!    Someone once told me that age is all in the mind.  But they don’t live in my body. J   That was flawed even before birth – leaving life-long malfunctioning of the mechanism.  We all have our physical issues, right…  And so at 63 I find the body more challenging to live in…  And the mind is losing its words, using wrong words, unable to articulate like I used to – finding blank spaces where words once were. Like in the previous post, I used the word obtuse instead of obscure, and furtive for fertile… I have since corrected them – and hoped you wouldn’t notice J - but still – words sometimes evade me.   Interesting experience.  Life as I’ve known it is winding down.  I’ve felt this for the last decade – this slowing down of the body mechanism.  Resisting it, or denying it, is like trying to hold back the inevitable.  And so I accept, adapt and refocus – well sometimes… J   Most days I’m just stiff, achy and fatigued – and forget who I really am – and I don’t mean my name J - but who I am at the core of Being – Being ItSelf – because I am preoccupied with the body…

63 is feeling more and more like a crossroads of some kind internally, more than any other threshold that I can remember, and even that ability is getting thin.   But it can’t be “business as usual” any longer.  I cannot spend time on what does not enrich and enliven.   And I must dive deep to find it…

There are deep internal rumblings of something wanting to emerge – to be seen, faced, acknowledged, recognized, even birthed…  There is still something here that wants to *Live* to be *enlivened* - a passion for Life - although felt less frequently.  The internal “shadows” seem deeper and longer in this waning time, as if there is still unfinished business – a deep wound that still needs healing… I know it is still the wound of separation.  Although some would tell me that’s all in my mind as well… J

 No matter what “spiritual path” or how much “spiritual practice” I do, or moments of “awakening” and “non-dual awareness” I experience, there is still a deep heartache and longing for “The Beloved” - for “Home”  -  to return to the root of what I’ve been longing for all my life, since childhood –  the Truth of Existence.  It has been my driving force.  No matter how much I read, or intellectually understand that I’m “already there”, and that there’s nothing to search for, nowhere to go, no “returning”, IT has to be realized, IT has to be *known* intimately through direct experience – apparently over and over again. J  The Self is still calling ItSelf back to ItSelf – back to full Awareness…

As long as it is there – this call - I will follow the longing of the Heart, and dive deep into the depths of Being – like the root of the Lotus…   Several years ago I had a “vision” in meditation of the long root of the Lotus going all the way down through the depths of the water to the bottom.  I didn’t understand what I was seeing then, but I see it now as a call into the depths of Being, to follow the root of Being all the way in.    This is my true threshold to cross – no matter how old… 

“Go IN & IN & IN
until you come to the pure Self - luminous,
the place of pure Being.
Return to the root…
Become aware of who is Seeing…
Go back & back to who you really are – Spirit.
The “final door” is going from form to formless -
Beyond the beyond – the eternally Quiet.

You have to go all the way back before you see
that behind all ‘this’ there is all this in its OM,
its unmanifested form -
seeing the OMness of everything…
Live consciously in all of it,
seeing the OMness of it all…”

Ram Dass