Sublime Presence - Chuck Surface

The moment-to-moment Experience of existing,
Imbued with the Ecstasy of Pure Awareness,
Timeless, spaceless, objectless... selfless,
Diminished in its arising in Form,
But unmistakably "of" its Source,
Water from that Ocean, Light from that Sun.

To the Hindus...
The Ananda of Satchitananda.
To the Christians...
The Presence of the Holy Spirit.
To the Sufis...
The Perfume of The Beloved.

A river of Formless Pure Being,
Flowing effortlessly into form,
Into the Wellspring of the Heart,
Overflowing... flooding even the physical form,
With Fullness, Completion, and Bliss.

Not simply peace, happiness, and joy,
On the level of psychology and emotion,
Not simply a profound understanding,
An apperception born of knowledge,
But the Orgasmic Ecstasy of the Soul.

Not constrained to eyes shut "meditation",
But with eyes open,
Here...

In this Dream of manifest existence,
Formlessness Being, Shining into and as Form.

The Beloved, ever within us,
Her Heart beating in ours, as ours.
The Embrace of Shiva and Shakti,
The Ecstasy of their Union.
For others... the touch of God.

Untouched, unmoved, impenetrable,
By the ever-changing circumstances,
Of conditionality,
Even as storms rage,
In the realms of psychology and emotion.

Ever-present, as Unimaginable Grace,
Even in moments
Of deepest Sorrow,
Deepest Despair,
Deepest Fear.

This Ineffably Sublime Presence,
Shining as the true Sat Guru,
The True Murshid,
The True Teacher,
In the Cave of The Heart.

The Comforter,
The Teacher,
The Beloved.

Chuck Surface

Facebook

In The Garden of the Beloved

~

Photo from the Internet

Sunset over a wake on the Ocean..

"Wandering"

"Wandering" in the Great Inner Wilderness - the Vastness of Being -
is intentional.  It is not floundering or aimlessness, but a deep
resting in The Silence of The Mystery...I am not renouncing
anything, nor seeking to attain anything - like enlightenment -
but only allowing myself to feel the deeper Rhythm of Life within -
through Silence and Solitude - through moving with the movement
of the Eternal, Infinite Being that arises from the deep inner space
 of Silence.

This is not an escape from the "world", yet to some degree that is true.
It is leaving behind the "surface consciousness" of the world that so
often drives us/me through life, and keeps us/me from deepening
into The Inner Rhythm - until - I am able to intuitively and
and instinctively feel the Internal Rhythm of Being flowing in and
through myself - naturally - usually through being in intentional
Silence...

This Rhythm is a fluid, open movement of unending intimacy with
"The Beloved" (The Formless Silence that animates all Life)...  I
wander this Inner Wilderness bringing my awareness to that internal

movement of Being - seeing how IT wants to move me.  At
times I feel as if "The Beloved" is as much in  my shoes as I am
in "The Beloved's" shoes - walking as one...

The Inner Wilderness is a space of remedial Silence for me that heals
the Heart and Spirit/Soul.  It allows me to be "anonymous" - without
identity, or function - just resting - allowing myself to be absorbed
by the Silence - leaving everything else behind until I am fully
Immersed...

Sometimes I experience an inexplicable, unbidden, palpable all-
encompassing - as if held from within - Presence of the deepest
Peace. Standing int the grocery store one day - yes, I still have to
 tend to the mundane :)  I am not in a cave somewhere :) - I was
acutely aware that I was surrounded and infused with a Great Peace
 in the midst of chaos...  I stood in wonder realizing this as life played
 itself out around me...  I also realized that I was actually functioning
 from that place, even without being aware of it, until I became aware
 of it - if you know what I mean.  A sense of "me-ness" had dropped,
to some degree, and "I" was just Peace - doing the groceries -
living life... But this was only a glimpse...a glimmer of Reality
 that faded over time.

Once, I felt myself fall more deeply into a felt sense of a deeper Inner
Rhythm - a seamless fluidity within - that nothing could interrupt: not
thought or the external distractions of life, nor the deeply ingrained
 emotional and mental patterns that arose as well.  Once again,
I was losing a sense of "me."  It was freeing as "I" was opened up to
the deeper Rhythm of Being; a deeper Awareness...  But this
 too faded in time.

Although these experiences faded, I do not consider them mere
"mystical experiences", but the normal play of the Formless in
Form that we encounter if we are paying attention...  The Formless
dances within us, and comes to us in many Forms, gracing us with
ITs touch...  We only need to be aware...

~

"The Beloved falls in Love with ItSelf...
Inhabits ItSelf - as Form...
and loves the Form of ItSelf..."

MM

~

this post was originally written in 2015

~

Photo from the internet

"Knowing"

"You have no regard for stature"

someone once told me...

It's true - title, position,
knowledge, wealth and status
do not impress me,

because we really are all
the same fabric of Reality,

weaving our way through life,
given what we've been given,
each playing a different role;
each a different thread,
each carrying a different burden;
most of us running through life
with blinders on,
only seeing our self-importance,
or our suffering, our struggle -
waiting for others to see it too...
But "we" are mere facades,
masks in a sea of masks -
most of us not really seeing the Being
we truly are behind the mask,
within the shell we call ourselves;
stature or not...

No one really knows more "truth"
than you do, if you really look
inside yourself.
And yet we flock to and believe
the self-professed gurus of the day -
the vendors of "truth" -
and read their books, inhale their words
spoken into the air,
as if they have acquired something
that we have not...  something that we don't "know."

Speaking their clever philosophies about
"truth", "reality", existence;
walls of empty words...
How do they really "Know?"

Turning inward we realize that we also "Know",

because the same "truth" Lives within all...
Is that arrogant to say ;)

This does not mean that I don't respect those
who truly Know - from their own direct experience;
not just regurgitating what they think they "know"
from other gurus and books;
other cosmologies and theologies...

We may all use a different language, or different words
- but still -

deep inside we intuitively Know.
if we allow ourselves to "know",
knowing that "knowing" changes,
through the fluidity of ever-expanding awareness.

Sometimes we know that we "know" with clarity.
And sometimes we are muddled with uncertainty and
 "not-knowing."
And perhaps the truth is that we really don't know the "truth."

So we keep searching for just the right teacher, or teaching,

the resonant words, longing to fill the "gap" we feel;
although "they" will tell us there is no "gap."
Or we fall back into old beliefs, grabbing for the familiar
paradigms of reality that will give our minds
a sense of certainty of "knowing" once again.

I know, I've done it 100's of times...

But these scaffoldings must collapse...

"Knowing" is really about being comfortable with, and trusting
 our own Inner Life, our own Inner Being,
that holds the Inner Knowing, rising within from a
Greater universal Knowing - the Sacred Silence -
from which Knowing comes...

Listening inwardly, not mentally,
not *acquiring* knowledge,
but letting the timeless innate Knowing
teach us, infuse us...

In time emerging into true Self-awareness -
as the Pure Light of Knowing
lights us from within...

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 22, 2018

Namaste

_/\_

~

Photo via No Mind's Land

digitally altered

Keep Noble Silence - Fred LaMotte

'Keep Noble Silence.'  This was the Buddha's teaching.
Is there a difference between ordinary silence and noble silence?

Ordinary silence is mindless.  Noble silence is mindful.

Ordinary silence is the absence of noise.  Noble silence is the
fullness of Being.  It is pure awareness, free from the chatter
of conceptual thought.

Peace comes through Being, not through argument.

Thought melts away, past and future dissolve into Presence.

Mind sinks into the groundless, journeys deep into the virgin
forest of the Heart.  There, in noble silence, one sees all
causes entangled in causelessness.  One sees golden emptiness
pervading all creatures.  One sees sparkling stillness in all action.

A silent heart irradiates the world with compassion.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Silence of Love - Rumi Revealed

Art by Rassouli

Rumi embodied the expression of love in a way that brought
heaven to earth.  He became part of the great mystery, the unity,
and the oneness that awakens the heart from a deep sleep to reveal
the divine truth of who we are...

The greatest of human achievements have not evolved from the
words expressed by a person manifesting greatness, but from the
depth of the Silence...

Silence is the ultimate presence of God.
The essence of love and creativity exists in Silence and not in the
words that are derived from the rational mind.  Every word evolves
from Silence, every sound proceeds from Silence, and every thing
that is created has originated from Silence.  All become the living
word of life itself.

Life is illuminated when the lips are closed, and the heart begins
to speak.

Rumi has given more value to "silence" for those on the path of
enlightenment than other mystics.  Many of the poems in the
Divan of Shams end with the words "Be silent", or some other
descriptive phrase about being silent.  His most mystical poems
and those with deeper meanings often reflect the importance of
Silence.  Perhaps some of the best advice in his poetry is when he
tells himself to be silent as he feels the emergence of the rational
mind interfering with his ecstatic state.  He usually stops the poetry
and goes into Silence when that happens.

.....poetry to him is conversation with love.  It is in
Silence that love most easily finds the way to the heart.  It is in
Silence that love is given the freest passage.  The expression of the
message then has the perfect clarity of truth. If we open our mouths
to speak, and our words do not come from love, then we should
say nothing.

Silence is pure essence, while talking is like a cover surrounding
the essence.  The deep ecstasy of the spiritual journey harbors the
beauty hidden inside.  Silence has many concealed advantages,
and the simplest one is that it relieves apprehension and doubt
and frees a person to embrace an inner peace.

There is sacred Silence inside everyone where a divine conversation
can be heard.  Be silent and listen to the whispers of love within
the heart that long to be expressed and feel the tranquility and
freedom love can bring.

What matters in life is what is true and the moments that are real,
moments when love is felt and experienced, when a connection
is made through love, whether it is another person, or when
feeling the presence of Divine Love.  Pure love is everything,
and it flows from a deep and sacred Silence...

Excerpts from: Rumi Revealed
from the chapter: Silence of Love
direct translations and mystical expressions
by Rassouli

Rassouli is also an exceptional artist

This Dance of Bliss - Goethe

What is this dance of bliss
Cascading through my senses?
I feel new life, holy rapture
Burning through my nerves and veins.
Was it a god who shaped these symbols
Summoning this inner ecstasy,
Filling my impoverished heart with joy,
And revealing, through some mysterious impulse,
Nature's secret sinews surrounding me?

Am I a god?  I am filled with such light!
In this pure array of emblems I see
Nature's workings laid bare before me.
Only now do I comprehend the sage's wise words:
It is your mind that is closed, your heart that is lifeless!
....rise without fright,
and bathe your earthly breast
in the rosy dawn's light!

As all things, one in one, are woven,
Each in the other works and lives and is whole!
While heavenly beings climb and descend
Passing down their golden pails,
And with their incense-pinioned wings
All heaven and earth are blessed;
They sing in symphony
through all things!

Goethe

~

This poem is from a newly published, inspiring collection
of poetry by classical mystics, seers and saints from all
traditions, called This Dance of Bliss, compiled and edited by
Ivan Granger of Poetry Chaikhana.  He also offers his
reflections and commentaries on the poems...

For a closer look at what's inside,
 and pre-order discount click here

Solitude - Zat Rana

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly
in a room alone."

Blaise Pascal

According to Pascal, we fear the silence of existence, we dread the
boredom and instead choose aimless distractions, and we can't help
but run from the problems of our emotions into the false comforts
of the mind.

We never learned the art of solitude.  And now we live in a world
where we're connected to everything except ourselves [Selves].
Everything that has done so much to connect us has simultaneously
isolated us.  We are so busy being distracted that we are forgetting to
tend to ourselves [Selves], which is consequently making us feel
more and more alone.

Never being alone is not the same as never feeling alone.  The less
comfortable you are with solitude, the more likely it is that you won't

know yourself [Self].  And then, you'll spend even more time avoiding
it to focus elsewhere.  In the process, you'll become addicted to the
same technologies that were meant to set you free.  Just because we can
 use the noise of the world to block out the discomfort of dealing with
ourselves doesn't mean that this discomfort goes away.

Almost everybody thinks of themselves as self-aware.  They think
they know how they feel and what they want and what their problems
are.  But the truth is that very few people really do.  And those that do
will be the first to tell you how fickle self-awareness is and how much
alone time it takes to get there.  In today's world, people can go
 their whole lives without truly digging beyond the surface-level  masks
 they wear...  We are increasingly out of touch with who we are...

Almost anything that controls our life in an unhealthy way finds its
roots in our realization that we dread the nothingness of nothing.  We
can't imagine just being rather than doing.  We have an instinctive
aversion to to simply being.  And therefore, we look for
entertainment, we seek company, and if those fail, we chase
even higher highs.  [Even "spiritual" highs].

We ignore the fact that never facing the nothingness is the same as
never facing ourselves [Selves].  And never facing ourselves [Selves]
is why we feel lonely and anxious in spite of being so intimately
connected to everything around us.

Fortunately, there is a solution.....  When you surround yourself with
moments of solitude and stillness, you become intimately familiar with
your environment in a way that forced stimulation doesn't allow.  The
world becomes richer, the layers start to peel back, and you see things
for what they really are, in all their wholeness, in all their
contradictions, and in all their unfamiliarity.

You realize there are other things you are capable of paying attention to
than just what makes the most noise on the surface.  [Solitude] allows
you to discover the novelty in things you didn't know were novel; it's
like being an unconditioned child seeing the world for the first time.  It 

also resolves the majority of internal conflicts.

Without realizing the value of solitude, we are overlooking the fact that,
once the fear of boredom is faced, it can actually provide its own
stimulation.  And the only way to face it is to make time to just sit...

with our thoughts, with our feelings, with a moment of stillness,
[with our Self]...

Zat Rana

Excerpt from: The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You

an article in "Medium", an online Salon for sharing ideas.

Medium.com

[brackets mine]

Exquisite Silence

Sitting in my chair one morning there was a sudden,
spontaneous awareness of exquisite Silence
 permeating the room.

It was a tangible Silence
pulling me inward - inviting me into its intimacy -
absorbing me...

Then mind said:
the faucet in the kitchen sink is broken,
gotta get a new faucet.

Silence silently said;
Follow Me...

Mind said: there are several piles of laundry
needing to be done.

Silence quietly said:
Be absorbed in Me...

Mind said: clean your house!

Silence merely said:
Be undisturbed...

And so I sat - within Exquisite Silence -
undisturbed, absorbed, at peace -

communing with Silence in silence...
sensing it, tasting it, feeling it,
experiencing it...

Delighting in the Silence of Being...
Like the way of "the ancients" - like Rumi
who knew the intimacy of the
Rhythm of Silence in his whirling...

Experiencing Exquisite Silence is
experiencing the presence of Pure Awareness,
the simple Isness of Being - just Being...
which is never disturbed by thought,
while thinking occurs  simultaneously...
It's just Beingness being what It is -
Silence...

touching you,
whispering to your Heart to come and be still -
to listen...

Exquisite Silence is the thread that runs through everything -
infusing all life with its Quietness...

Following the Silence takes you to the Eternal Ocean of Being,
where Silence continuously rolls in upon ItSelf,

wave after wave...

What ecstasy to be absorbed in Exquisite Silence...

I didn't want to move from my chair,
but to move only as Silence moved me...

Everything else can wait...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
Sept. 2012

The World of a Mystic - Naomi Stone

A mystic cannot help vanishing
into the living mystery of God...
It calls the soul beyond everything I have ever known
and then surprises by manifesting creatively...

infinitely... and intimately...

in the feathering of divine essence
as such variation and beauty...

I experience melting of all identity
into the softness of love
and the magnificence of light
in the gift of caressing waves of peace...

God is [the] artist of stroking color and vision...
[the] sculptor of glorious expression...
the sound and symphony
of the evolution of the spinning stars...
a glowing luminous and embracing moonlight...
mountainous stairways to the sky...
whispering tenderness...
an interior river of flowing peace...

an eternal companion...
magnifying and enlarging and deepening
the expanse and reach of divine love...

the sacred path
of the sweet revelation
of relationship
where everything is transformed into life itself...

I surrender into the sacred surroundings
of an absolutely enchanting Beloved...
this is the exquisite and elegant dwelling
within the One
from whom we came...

Naomi Stone

Personal Note - This is similar to what I experience when I "enter" (become aware of) the Sacred Silence within.  It is the space of  Presence, the Divine, The Beloved, or "God", however one calls this for themselves...

Photo ~ Rainbow light on wall

Waking up to your Aliveness - Elizabeth Gilbert

Creativity is the relationship between a human being and the
mysteries of inspiration...

We are all capable of brushing up against a sense of mystery and
inspiration.  We may be able to draw nearer to that source than we
think, being gently propelled by some force, something not "me."

"Creative living" is living a life that is driven more strongly by
curiosity than be fear. [But] you won't be able to create anything
interesting out of your life if you don't believe in "creative
entitlement."  This doesn't mean behaving like a princess, or acting
as though the world owes you anything.  "Creative entitlement"
simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and that
merely by being here, you are allowed to have a voice, and a vision
of your own.

The poet David Whyte calls this sense of creative entitlement "the
arrogance of belonging", and claims that it is absolutely vital
to cultivate if you wish to interact more vividly with life.
Without this "arrogance of belonging", you will never be able to take
any creative risks, without it, you will never push yourself out of the
suffocating insulation of personal safety and into the frontiers of the
beautiful and the unexpected.

The "arrogance of belonging" is not about egotism or self-absorption.
In a strange way it is a divine force that will actually take you out of
yourself and allow you to engage more fully with life.  Because often
what keeps you from "creative living" is your self-absorption, i.e.
your self-doubt, your self-disgust, your self-judgment, your crushing
sense of self-protection.  The "arrogance of belonging" pulls you out
of the the darkest depths of self-hatred, not by saying "I am the
greatest!" but merely saying "I am here" -
the simple entitlement to exist and
express yourself.

Your soul will mobilize accordingly.  It will mobilize ecstatically,
because this is what your Soul [Being] was born for.  Your Soul
has been waiting for you to wake up to your own existence
[your Aliveness] for years. 
[Being wants to express ItSelf through you in creative ways.]

Elizabeth Gilbert
Author of Eat Pray Love

above excerpt from: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear 

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - leaves on grass,
color digitally inverted

A Field of Compassion - Matt Licata

Forcing our preferred methodology, belief, or view upon
someone because we think it is "right", or "more advanced"
[ or"enlightened"] when they do not possess the resonance, interest
or capacity to engage that practice [or ideology] is unkind,
aggressive and even potentially violent.

It is one thing to honor another's innate higher capacities -
and to never forget the brilliance of their true nature -
especially in the face of profound suffering.  But it is
another to push this realization upon them as a result of
our own failure of empathy...

May we meet each other with a wild sort of caring...

In this field where we are compassionate, creative and attuned -
not pushing our own agenda, view, or technique - together we
can access, articulate, and integrate that which longs to return
home, and in this discover
it is love that is truly the ultimate medicine.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - a slab of Rose Quartz

Go There - Sarah Carlson

Don't go there - worst advice ever.
At least it was for me.
In truth,
it became vital to go into
that which was causing my dis-ease.
You can wrap it up,
store it away,
deny its existence.
But there IS there,
will continue to be.
It's not easy to take the leap.
You'll need support and love,
but when the time is right,
when you hear the call or
feel the tug
go there.

You'll gather what is necessary,
enabling you to take
what there has to teach
and utilize it for good.
Over time you will discover
slivers of understanding,
shards of insight,
specks of wisdom
that, together,
provide illumination and peace.
There has virtues all its own
that will mingle and mesh with
here and now
revealing the beauty
of a familiar landscape
anew.
So go there -
wander and wonder,
explore and examine,
and in time,
restore and recover.

Sarah Carlson

~

Sarah's husband suddenly died 15 years ago leaving
her alone with 2 kids to raise, having to carve out a life
for herself.  She turned to writing poetry to express her
process of facing into life...

~

My note:  In the Buddhist tradition, as I understand it, and I am not a Buddhist, when we are facing a "darker" place, the "remedy" is to face it and embrace it.  There is no condemnation or judgment for *feeling* the way we do, about any situation.  There is no denial of our feelings, there is no "prescription", or "non-dual" script to follow to realize or "awaken" to our True Nature/Self, thereby "avoiding" or "erasing" our feelings; nor are there admonitions to be in the Here and Now.  There is just being who we are in the experience we find ourselves in...

Something that some "spiritual" teachings don't teach: It's all allowed, the dark and the light, the totality of our lived experience.  It is self-compassion, not selfishness, to open ourselves to our feelings, and to sit with what has caused our "dis-ease" - to discover the cause of our suffering, despair, angst, fear, grief, sorrow, etc., individually and as a society.  And to be fiercely present to that from a compassionate heart, which we can then offer to another who is suffering.

It Will Be in the Silence - Jamie K. Reaser

Sometimes you come upon a place that
beckons you into silence: an old stone bench,
a lake shore, a certain time of your life.  Nothing
small can reside there.

.

I'm looking for that place now, the kind of place
that puts clocks to rest because something must
come forth to reset everything.  I don't want to
follow these rules and constructs anymore -

written, not written, felt.

.

Something is asking me not to, and it is wise.

.

Reason doesn't have roots that run deep enough
to tap the place that I am longing for, that place
where obvious things cannot be explained. That
place that is called sacred even by those who
never used the word before.

.

I want you to sit and wait with me, away from the
noise and the voices of those who speak only to rob
you of your name.  What most needs to be heard
hasn't yet been said.

Jamie K. Reaser

© 2016

From "Conversations with Mary"

Intimacy With Silence

There is an intimacy with Silence
that is indefinable,
luminous and still...

A fluidity of

s p a c i o u s

Silent Awareness

A limitless depth and breadth,
that embraces, surrounds, and fills
every crack and crevice
of the body and mind,
soothing and aligning the "energies"
softening their flow ~ ~ ~ 

There is a sanity in this Silence
that is beyond
any acquired knowledge...

It is felt as

The Breath of the Infinite
The Kiss of the Mystery
The Whisper of Love...

~

I know that I am Home...

...resting in
The Primordial Womb
of Life!

~

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 8, 2018

The Miracle of Pure Existence - Fred LaMotte

Existence itself is a miracle!
Whatever happens in this Existence is insubstantial,
ever changing,
never better or worse,
worth neither to be grasped or rejected...

The space in which this world is happening,
the air of pure Existence,
is complete,
overflowing with joy,
and utterly divine.
The space is without taint or boundary.
It is motionless, silent and self-luminous.

Usually our attention is absorbed by what is happening,
and so we lose the simple innocent awareness of
the Existence in which it happens.
Existence becomes the background to the play of forms
that rise and change and disappear.
But in the awakened view,
which is the clearest simplest view,
Existence becomes the foreground,
and the forms of the world sink into the background
...into the still boundless space of
Existence...

The greatest miracle is
the gift of Existence.

At every moment,
the answer to any problem
is to just observe
the dance of
Existence.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Enlightening Perspective :)

My husband found this pic on Facebook and I just had to repost it here :)

Definition of Down Syndrome:

"The innate ability to see the good and beauty in the world,
to radiate joy and happiness, and to offer a unique perspective
on life with the ability to change other's perceptions."

Sweet...

This touched my heart deeply and reminded me that an
enlightened perspective doesn't depend on how intellectually
brilliant we are, or how much we understand with our minds,
it's all about how we see with our Heart;
staying innocent and open to life...

We are lit from within with a beautiful, loving, kind,
compassionate, trusting Spirit.
If only we could truly Experience it, Express it,
Be it...

Just Trust, Just Love, Just Be...

Honoring The Mystery - Mark Nepo

Somehow we have been dropped into the Mystery,
below our roles, and identities, fallen through our maps into
one stream of love.  Some moment or circumstance becomes
an unexpected doorway into the Mystery.  We never know how
it will appear, or how we will be drawn to it...

Honoring the Mystery is what opens us to the powers of wholeness -
this unknowable totality that we live in.  To honor the Mystery is
not just to glimpse the whole, or even acknowledge the whole, but
to live our days with [as] that wholeness...  Commit to leaning into
life until it drops you beneath your surface maps of reality...

Though we pray to the many faces of God, each is a changing
wave in the sea of Divine Being...  Any circumstance that
awakens us to that divine sea is a holy gift...

If courageous enough we might just slow down to the pace
of creation, where the pulse by which the mind thinks touches
the pulse by which the heart feels, and together they equal the
rhythm where Being plays in exact motion with all beings...

Nothing matters but emptying...

until the softness we call Spirit bubbles through the tongue
and words fail in utter adoration.
Nothing now but the need to be...

Mark Nepo
From: The Exquisite Risk

~

Photo - Water on Windshield through a car wash :)

Mystical Alchemy

We were born from the fathomless Cosmic "darkness",
the Eternal Depths of the Primordial Womb
before Light began...
from which Light emerged;
a mystery...

Without knowing how or why...
We simply are...
Life ItSelf - simply being...

Born of this Ineffable Mystery,
the Cosmic Igniter of the Divine Flame
ignites the Ember of our Heart
in Mystical Alchemy.

Without the need for certainties of the mind,
or intellectual "understandings."
Only visceral awareness of
"The Presence" that
Illumines the Heart
through Grace...

Pure Bliss...
Pure Blessing...

~

Ever in Gratitude,
A Humble Lover of "The Mystery"...

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 2017

Follow Your Own Footsteps - Mark Nepo

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 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 summons 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...

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)

The Compass Of My Soul - Chuck Surface

I've read so much of the Great Paths,
Resonating here, with this,
Finding myself uneasy there, with that,
Until setting each tome aside...

'Twas You I found, wordless, within.

I've traveled far, to famed teachers,
Being uplifted here, by this,
Finding myself disturbed there, by that,
Until, leaving those places...

'Twas You I found, speechless, within.

I've sojourned in the villages of faith,
And in each discovered jewels,

In the rubble heaps of dogma,
But always, my sandals caked in mud...

'Twas You I found, Sparkling, there.

Beyond the safe harbors of orthodoxy,
In the deep waters of The Great Mystery,
Tossed in Dread Tempests of Unknowing,
Unanchored, Rudderless, Adrift...

'Twas You I found, the Compass of my Soul.

Chuck Surface

Garden of the Beloved

Facebook

~

Photo from Chuck's FB page

Losing the Maps - Mark Nepo & Kastrup

Just when we're softened by the years,.
when we have enough experience to see
for ourselves, our maps are torn from us.
This can be frightening, but there's divine
timing in the dissolution of a stubborn mind,
the way an inlet waits on the last rock to crumble
so it can find its destiny to the sea.  Losing the
way set out by others is necessary so we can discover
for ourselves what it means to be alive.  Now we can
burn the clothes others have laid out for us, [other's
maps of reality, other's agendas], not in anger, but
to light our way.  Now we can let the soul spill its
honey on the unleavened life we've been carrying.
Now we can rise.

Mark Nepo

Poem from: Inside the Miracle

[brackets mine]

~

All explanations are myths whose truth-value we
assign subjectively.  They are true only in so far
as we say they are true.  They are stories we
conjure up and tell ourselves in order to make sense
of the disconnected, context-free phantasmagoria of
present perception.  It makes no sense to proclaim
any explanation for the present to be objectively true...

Bernard Kastrup
More Than Allegory
via - Markings

Go Deeper Than Love - D.H. Lawrence

What we lack is a cosmic life...
The rhythm of the cosmos is something we cannot
get away from without impoverishing our lives.
We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation
to the cosmos and the universe.
For the truth is, we perish for lack of fulfillment of our greater
needs, we are cut off from the great source of our inward
nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally
in the universe...

~

Go deeper than love,
for the soul has greater depths...
Go down to your deep, old heart.
and lose sight of yourself.
Let us lose sight of ourselves,
and break the mirrors.
For the fierce curve of our lives is
moving again to the depths
out of sight
in the deep living Heart.

D.H. Lawrence

~

I am part of a vast network, an unbroken legacy of evolved,
thinking sentient beings that is older than myself, older
than my ancestors, older than my species, older than the
rocks and trees and even the planet we live upon.

...my origins go back even further, to the Big Bang and beyond...
eons ago, to a time before time.

Poffo Ortiz

Out Beyond Polarities - Rumi & Babka

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
there is a field.  I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in *that* grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
doesn't make any sense...

Rumi

The great Persian poet and Sufi Mystic, Rumi, speaks in
this poem of a field, a clearing, a place empty of divisiveness,
empty of opposition, empty of what we think is certain.

Violence reverberates throughout the world in strains so familiar
that we often are complacent when there is another headline.

We don't often consider how our collective guilt extends the cruelty
and division in the world.  We are guilty of the failure to be
compassionate, and the polarity between the secular and the sacred,

and the unwillingness to be spiritually curious about our shared
responsibility for the violence we see in the world, [in the form of]
poverty, racism, homophobia; the violence of certainty, which claims
the superiority of being 'right'; the violence of oppression,
of absolutes, of nationalism.

We must meet each other in the space where we are all beyond
right and wrong [beyond polarities]... surpassed in the simplicity
of tenderness, the attentive word, the awareness that we each live,
in every moment, exposed to death.

We must practice deliberate compassion.
Each of us deserves to be valued and held as we are,
where we are...

Susie Paulik Babka, PhD

Associate of Religious Studies

Excerpt from an article she wrote in the Huffington Post,
"Out Beyond Ideas: A Field of Empathy in Response to Violence"
about the violent death of her father and 4 others in a
cycling accident.