Taking Responsibility - Pema Chodron

All activities should be done with the intention of speaking
so that another person can hear you, rather than using words
that cause the barriers to go up and the ears to close.  Everything
you say can further  polarize the situation and convince you
[and others] of how separate you are.  On the other hand,
everything you say and do and think can support your desire
to communicate from the Heart, to move closer and
step out of this myth of isolation and separateness that
 we're all caught in.

...you don't have to get frozen in [language] of
loser or winner,
good guy or bad guy...

We have two alternatives.  Either we hold onto our fixed versions
of reality, or we begin to challenge them, and start dissolving
the barriers that we erect between ourselves and the world.

Pema Chodron
Buddhist Teacher
From: Comfortable with Uncertainty

photo - two pieces of bread that look like faces
facing each other...

~

How We Get There - Fred LaMotte

We wonder why everyone is so stressed.  But many of us would
not know who we are without conflict...

Democrat against Republican, socialist against capitalist,
woman vs man, black vs white, vegan vs omnivore,
the enlightened vs the ignorant...

Maybe the answer is never one side vs the other.  Maybe we could
rest the [conflicted] mind in the Heart. Maybe we could all go meet
in Rumi's field, under the stars, beyond the ideas of right and wrong.
How can we get there?
Listen to the Silence.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

With great grief for the hatred and violence
in this country...

To feel one's grief is being authentic, allowing
yourself to feel another's grief, the collective grief
of people heartbroken from the trauma of violence. It
softens you, opens the heart and gives you a different lens
with which to see others with a sense of connectedness
and compassion; dissolving the barriers that separate,
allowing a different vision than your own dearly held beliefs
and opinions, whether spiritual or political.  And in that
is a deepening sense of inner peace and equilibrium...

~

2nd photo - the Om (Aum) symbol is a sacred symbol of the
universal name of God (or Ultimate Reality),
Om (Aum) is the ever present "sound"/vibration of
 an already unified Universe, which expresses itself dualistically
in our experience here.
When you are in meditative Silence, listening, you are aware
of it, the Universal Om - the Hum of the Universe.
  It pervades even the chaos,
and every "sound" becomes the sound of OM/Aum singing
the song of the Universe...  Just listen...
One experiences the wholeness of Life,
despite what is happening...
At least that it my experience.

The Elastic Now - Ira Progoff

Now is not limited to the immediate instant. It is not just
'here and now', not just the spot on which we stand, nor
this moment when we speak.  Our Now moment is elastic...

The Now of our life thus becomes more than a moment.
It is as long or short as the situation of each life requires,
and it includes the most recent part of the past that is a
meaningful factor *in* the present.  This forms the period
that [we call] Now, our most recent relevant past as it
moves in the present.

For each person, the elastic Now has a different content,
and a different duration.  Whatever [the experience] is
[in our lives] it is the Now for us...  It is the particular
present moment in which we find ourselves.  The present
moment of our lives may cover a short period or a longer
period.  Whatever its duration, whatever its content, whether
it is pleasant or painful..... it is unique to all of us. 
The period of Now varies with each individual.
 It is a movement of life...

Let yourself feel the inward *movement* of your life as it
has been taking shape in this present period.  Hold yourself
in a condition of openness in which no particular thoughts
are dominating your mind.  Be silent. 

Sit in the stillness - feeling the movement of life.
Sit in the quietness - an inward awareness comes.
There is an inward sensing of the tone of our life in this
present movement of our lives...

Ira Progoff

~

By "Here" I don't mean the present space.
Time is in the mind.
"Here" is somewhere within where the mind cannot reach.
Presence is always here and you are always That.
This "here" is not the opposite of "there."
"There" is nowhere, it is your Heart.

When the mind is still all comes back
to the Heart.

All the cosmos is but a speck
in your Heart.

Papaji

All We Are, We Are

I realized a few years back, and again while experiencing a
recent relapse of a chronic illness, that I was resisting;
resisting the condition, and its related symptoms, as well as
life itself.  The mind was fixating on the bodily symptoms and
resisting what was happening, forgetting its True Essence
and the simplicity of just Being - just living as life presents itself.
When I finally woke up to this, I felt bad that I had fallen into
resistance again...  After all, Life moves the way it moves - right?
But, even so, I resisted the resistance  :) - in subtle ways
resisting what is...

So - I asked to be shown what I needed to see here.

The "answer" came, not through meditation, or sitting in the Silence,
or practicing a "practice", but while at the grocery store...

Several years ago, while waiting in line at the check-out, I heard
the words of a song being played on the PA system.  The words
were: "All we are we are..." lyrically repeated over and over
again.  I couldn't make out the other words in the other verses,
only the chorus: "All we are we are..."  The rhythm of the words
drew me in:  "All we are we are..."

Of course!
How could we be anything else?  As I stood waiting in line,
 listening to the words, I looked around, in a relaxed state of
awareness, my eyes unexpectedly landing on a word over in
the far corner from where I was standing that was printed on the
side of the display shelf.  It said:

"Inclusive"

My mind just stopped - eyes glued to the word - in awe.
I realized - there it was: my "answer."
And it all came together...

All we are, we are...

Inclusive...

Nothing is excluded - no thought, no feeling, no emotion,
not even resistance.  We can't be anything other than we are.
We are who we are...  All of it - not just the parts we like,
but even our hidden parts, the "darker" parts; the depression,
the discouragement, the anger, the anxiety, the restlessness,
the doubts, the uncertainties,the insecurities, the resistance...

I could feel the tears welling up with this recognition - with
the acceptance that everything is included - life as it is -
me exactly as I am.  There is nothing "wrong" with any of it!
It's all embraced as an experience of Being.  It is all expressions
of the Essential Self, in all it's many forms - the waves of the
Ocean rising and falling back into ItSelf - over and over again.
It's inclusive of the hard times and the easy times, not separating
out the good and bad experiences, as I tend to do - still believing
 the distinction in my mind, "complexifying" (I love this word!)
my life.  Pure Beingness embraces everything inclusively as
ItSelf - expressing this "me" as ItSelf - all of me; not the
perfection of me.  Our Beingness embraces it all -
enfolds every part back to ItSelf - our pain, our circumstances,
our life - as we are, as it is - without hesitation - without resistance.
Everything is ALLOWED.

I know this and forget this.
Everything unfolds the way it does, including the "resistance."
And so I once again whisper softly in its ear, as if to a
frightened child:
"You're included, all is well..."

All we are, we are...

Inclusive...

~

Originally written 2010

The song "All We Are" is by Matt Nathanson

~

Photo - light through a blue glass

The Uncarved Block - Cara Lumen

In Taoism, the uncarved block is who we are at our core,
the Essence of our being.  It is our Pure Self, our original state
of Being before it is shaped by various life processes.
Returning to the simplicity of the uncarved block means
returning to a wholeness.....at the center of our Being.

"The essence of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original
simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily
spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed..."
The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff

What are we like at the core?  What is our Essence?  What were
we before we layered our lives with experience?

Our life experience gradually shapes our original uncarved block
of Self.  Our beliefs dictate the shape, our responses and choices
become our carving tools.

When we come from a place of our uncarved block.....we allow
our life to unfold and simply shape things as they come.

What if we learn to stop where we are in our lives, go back to
the Essence of our uncarved block...?

We can let go of form and become whole and uncarved again.

If we go back to pure innocence, what is there?

It is our "spiritual Essence."  It is the Qi energy moving through
the body...

Learn to return to an awareness of the uncarved, untouched, unformed
Self [Being] and use the simplicity of that to fully experience your
present life.

Simply live...  Question perceptions...  Examine thoughts...
Learn to remain rooted in the wholeness of simplicity
of your uncarved block.

Choose only what nurtures you.

Cara Lumen
Excerpts from: Return To The Simplicity Of The Uncarved Block

The Hush of "The Mystery"

The Hushhhh of "The Mystery"
silently moves through time and form...
Life living ItSelf...

Can you feel it? -
this hush of Silence that moves through you,
even when you are not trying to...

It often comes in sudden,
unexpected
breezes of awareness,
wafting through your being -
in and out of your noticing,
but never really gone ~

It waits for you - to stop - and listen -

to sense Its Presence...

It invites you - to enter
the cosmic seduction of
Its Love,
to follow Its Silence,
more deeply,
into the cavern
of Its Heart
that awaits you
in the depths
of Its repose.

Succumb
to what awaits you
in
The Silence of "The Mystery" ~

Love's Illumination

_/\_

Mystic Meandering

2013

~

I use the term "The Mystery" here,
but one can call it" The Infinite, the Unknown,
the Ineffable, Consciousness, Pure Awareness,
The Unamable, The Beloved, and of course,
God...

~

"The Mystery" is Life ItSelf, ever unfolding,
ever revealing ItSelf. We are always in a state of
discovering "The Mystery" and what IT reveals to us -
ongoingly.  What IT offers each of us is unique,
yet universal; speaking directly to our Hearts...

When I speak of "The Mystery"
it is always from my own *experiences* of it,
for I am acutely aware that I *know* nothing
*about* "The Mystery", only how "The Mystery"
reveals ItSelf to me...

Namaste

~

Photo - A glass sphere in glass floral pebbles
back lit from underneath

Wonderment

Night of Northern Lights video

Be sure to click on the square icon in the lower right hand corner
after you start playing the video for the full screen affect.

~

...I don't know what gladness is or where it comes from, this splitting
open of the self.  It takes me by surprise.  Not an awareness of beauty
and mystery, but beauty and mystery themselves, flooding into a
mind suddenly without boundaries.  Can this be gladness, to be
lifted by the flood?

This is something that needs explaining, how light emerges from
darkness, how comfort wells up from sorrow.  The Earth holds
every possibility inside it, and the mystery of transformation,
one thing into another.  This is the wildest comfort.

Kathleen Dean Moore
From: Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature

~

How can you explain the mystery of the inexplicable?
You can only surrender to it...
My "medicine" - my wild comfort - is
the wonderment and splendor
of the Infinite Cosmos
It soothes my soul...

MM

The Dharma of Illness - Tarchin Hearn

In the midst of the 21st century, many people, in spite of all
their worldly wisdom, are still laden with medieval attitudes to
illness.....as if sickness is some kind of failing.  Physical dysfunction,
frailty or weakness is often experienced as if it were something to be
ashamed of, or guilty about - as if we have failed to meet some target
or some kind of socially acceptable ideal of good health.  We often
feel a need to make excuses for our suffering.  As if we needed to make
excuses for being vulnerably co-dependent dancings that we are!  We
try to identify a concrete cause for our condition, not only to help us
find a resolution to it but because the only alternative to identifying
a clear 'outer' cause seems to be that we ourselves, our behavior or our
lifestyles, are the cause.  It's our bad 'karma' or perhaps our bad diet or
lack of exercise or excessive stress, and illness is punishment or
retribution for our dissolute living!

[Could it be that] illness has invited us into a period of intensified
enquiry, contemplation and spiritual ripening...

An immeasurable expanse of experience and experiences surrounds
 and suffuses [us], a weaving together of uncountable situations and
circumstances - a seamless whole in the act of constant transformation
 - this dancing of [our] current knowing/beingness.

All complex, inter-dependent life dancings, in other words, all living
beings, have come about through the collaboration and balancing of
uncountable factors.  As the relationship between these factors
 changes, the system functions differently.  If the relationships change
 sufficiently, the functioning will change into something else
all together and the original functioning will no longer be there. 
These constantly changing relationships are a basic nature of all
interdependent arisings.  There is no shame in this.

Birth without death would not be life.  This continuous streaming of
birthing/dying is life in action.

~

Moving in the flow of compassion and deepening enquiry,
we engage with all beings in ways that support the integrity,
the stability and the beauty of the entire living world.

Engaging with this [flow] of birthing/dying living,
embracing it, surrendering to it, [we find that] the mystery
is tremendously integrated.
It is extraordinarily stable.  It has been in action for
billions of years.  It is breath-stoppingly beautiful in
all its vulnerability...

My medicine is wonderment...

Tarchin Hearn

Excerpts from:
The Dharma of Illness and The Medicine of Wonderment

Tarchin has a unique view of the inter-dependency of all life,
which he calls the "Holoverse", borrowing from the idea of
the Hologram.  The full article is worth the read, especially
for those dealing with a chronic health condition.  It really
helped me change my perspective on my own health issues.

(Dharma = Cosmic order)

The Dancing Matrix of Life - Tarchin Hearn

Life is a boundless matrix of dynamic relationship.
Ultimately, every action reverberates throughout the universe.
I responding to you.
You responding to me.
This responding to that.
That responding to this.

Responsiveness is the living heart of being...
Atoms, molecules, organs and organisms, families and societies;
entire ecosystems, biospheres, planes and galaxies;
all shifting, responding, constantly changing.
Each birthing of this is a dying of that.
Each dying of that is a birthing of this.
Responsive change is the very nature and fabric of what is.
Permanence is a mental abstraction; a hope, a need,
a convenient but potentially deadening freezing
of the actual creative dynamic of all our lives in action.

Suffering arises through trying to fix or make permanent
what is essentially a seamless fluid process.

May we cease grasping at permanence and
with heartful confidence, love, enthusiasm and wide awake
sensitivity, enter fully the great birthing/dying matrix of
responsive relating;
this ineffable, un-pin-down-able, present blessing of now.

Tarchin Hearn

~

Photo - Indra's Net of Jewels Mandala

2013

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

What Wants to Come - Richard Wehrman

Out of that space that she
could not command, could
not direct, could extract
nothing from, except what
was given by the space itself,
out it came - what wanted
to come in its own way - and
she.....

the one along on the hurtling
ride, though space itself
was Silence itself, unmoving,
unmoved, unmovable - yet
it drew her in, into its very within,
she.....
who had been with-out, powerless,
hands pressed
against the glass of its sides,
like Alice to the looking-glass,
then she fell.....
was lifted in, was absorbed
into all she saw,
the all that was, that is,
heard, smelled, touched, tasted,
though none of these senses were,
only the clear light,
flooding the field, the transition
of the seasonal air, as Summer
shimmered into non-existence,
and clarity stood in silent
reveling: color and light and
form, falling upon her...

Poem - Richard Wehrman
From: Being Here

~

Top Photo via No Mind's Land

Bottom Photo - mine - a mistake, color enhanced
Can you see the form of a woman in pink with
arms outstretched? :)

How the Day Keeps Us - John O'Donohue

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night.
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice now each day is a holy place
Where the Eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

John O'Donohue
Original Title: The Inner History of a Day
From: To Bless the Space Between Us:
A Book of Blessings

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

Guru Cat speaks again

Listen to me...

Just lay it all down - Guru Cat said.
Just let life beeee, for heaven's sake -
What is,
as it is...
There is no other way through
but acceptance - ya know,
sounding exasperated...

Do not pursue the esoteric "answers"
for what cannot be explained:
for your existential angst;
for the frustrations with the way life is;
for the weariness of existence that you feel...
Be at peace with it all,
as it is...

Could this really be the "answer"!? -

I asked... in my head...
Just acceptance of what is?!
Just letting each experience be what it is...?

Guru Cat's eyes just stared.
Life is an interfluidity of experiences.
In the acceptance of each experience
is peace, a deep relaxation, a release
of all tension.
and, an inner movement of fluidity
with the deeper Rhythm of Life...

It's not as complicated as your mind
makes it...

It's not rocket science...
It's just Life living ItSelf...

She gave me that look.

Just rest - Guru Cat went on, trying to soften her tone,
with less sarcasm, more feeling...
Rest in the deep Silence of Being,
not seeking solutions,
or efforting after resolutions,
but deeply relax
into the Unknown,
and the unknowable,
only Aware of the Silence
within you,
the silent Presence of Awareness.
Do you see this yet?
Can you feel it?

Guru Cat continued to stare with steely eyes...

Remain relaxed in
the simplicity of Being
that just IS -
the ISness of Being

as it is-
Only Aware...
Not concerned with anything
that arises
within
or
without

Just Aware...

Yes, Guru Cat - I said

Guru Cat just stared...

and there was only the silence
of being  - Aware.

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 23, 2018

"Equinox" - Rumi

Artist: Puisi - ambua.id

Look at love
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love.

Look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life.

Why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad.
Pay attention to how things blend.

Why think separately

of this life and the next
when one is born from the last?

Look at your heart and tongue,
one feels but deaf and dumb,
the other speaks in words and signs.

Look at water and fire,
earth and wind,
enemies and friends all at once.

The wolf and the lamb,
the lion and the deer
far away and yet together.

Look at the unity of this
spring and winter
[or summer and fall]
manifested in the equinox.

You too must mingle my friends...

Be like sugarcane,
sweet and silent.
Don't be mixed up with bitter words.
My Beloved grows right out of my [your] own heart.
How much more union can there be...

Rumi

Translation by Mader Khalili
From: This Dance of Bliss

Poetry Chaikhana

Original title: "Look at Love"

~

The "Equinox" is a "pivotal cosmic hinge"
signifying equilibrium, or equality;
a fluid threshold, poised between 2 seasons.
Or in the case of the whirling dervish,
the union/merging of heaven and earth;

between Divine and human.
The Dervish whirls with one palm open up
to the cosmos and the other palm downward,
open to the earth...
symbolizing the union of our Divine nature
and our human nature...
the fusion of spirit and matter;
being reborn to the Truth of our Being...

As Rumi says -
"how much more union can there be? :)

Free to Be

I am free to be...

Free to Be - just as i am...

I/i am Beingness being...
Consciousness awareing...
Self expressing ItSelf;
or whatever word you give
The Mystery...

"I" - dressed up as "me" - "me" as "I" - i/I
Formless as form,
Form as formless...

Opening to The Mystery
we are free to be our unique selves,
just as we are...

When we know this
"something" wakes up inside -
and hums...

Everything is OM -
the hum of Life - humming -
playing in the play of Life
as i/I ~

with a multitude of other expressions of i/I
all playing in the sandbox of Life...

When we let go of the words
and the frameworks of belief and interpretations
we are free just to Be
~ as we are ~
letting go of the concepts of

i/I, I/me and "no-me"
we are
just Life - being lived
as we are.

There is something authentic
in allowing myself to be

as i/I am...

Life is met from a different space ~

the space of acceptance for all...

Play well!

Ommmmmmm

_/\_

Mystic Meandering

Meditative Writings
2011

~

Photo from a T-shirt

Lay It Down - Richard Wehrman

Could he really lay
it down, he wondered,
all the accumulated
projected desires, partly
his own, but most of it laid
out by others, in books,
in talks, in teachings
that said, this is your goal:
the unattainable, the
spiritually pure - you, the
ignorant, the unwashed and
uneducated - this is your
way to become better
than you inherently are.
No sense that you were [already]
what you were meant to be,
only what you might 

be molded to, chiseled into,
added onto your skeletal
frame of lack and loss.
For laid down, what would
he have but himself,
the very thing they convinced
him was worthless the
way it was.
What if this was all
he had, all he was... ?

Richard Wehrman
From: Being Here

Original title: "All He Had"

Truth is an Oasis - Jinendra

Truth is a pathless Oasis
Who can show you the path?
Have faith in yourself...
And begin the inner walk

To experience Truth
Put all aside
All that you have heard
All that you have ever read
All knowledge of scriptures
and the philosophical tenets
Put them all aside

[.....]

Just simply be Aware
Of the Reality within you...
Observe through your Inner Eyes

As the inner walk progresses
Awareness of space
and time ceases

Always remaining Equanimous
Alone you walk ... ...
and walk ... and ... walk
To the deeeeeepest depth
Of your mind and heart
To arrive at the Whole Truth

To live truthfully
Let each moment of Truth
Bring you to the next moment
of Truth

And so, from this moment's Truth
to the next moment's Truth
From Truth to Truth ... to Truth
On this pathless path you move
Until you finally arrive
In this pathless journey
To the Oasis of Truth

As you continue your "inner walk"
The observer merges with the observed
In a flash is revealed the Unknowable
The Truth - the Self is now Known
Beyond all doubts

[.....]

Now don't hold on
to your preconceived ideas and beliefs
Let go of all your old conceptions
You will understand and see
the meaning that hides behind these words

The Truth brings total synthesis...
Inward-Outward you now exist
In total peace and harmony

Be aware and perceive rightly

Then the words come alive and become meaningful
If not, they are like writings on water
Soon to disappear into meaninglessness!

Jinendra
Center for Sustainable Happiness

Photo and text via No Mind's Land

Be Where Love Is - Rumi

My heart, sit only with those
who know and understand you.

Sit only under a tree
that is full of blossoms.

Not every eye can see,
not every sea is full of pearls.

My heart, sing the song of longing
like nightingale.

First, lay down your head,
then one by one
let go of all distractions.

Embrace the light and let it guide you
beyond the winds of desire.
There you will find a spring and

be nourished by its sweet waters...

Rumi

"Unknowing knowing" Commentary - Granger

The following is the commentary by Ivan Granger that
accompanied the previously posted poem:
"Unknowing knowing"/"I Entered the Unknown."
I thought it might be helpful...

He says:

...the poem's archaic use of the word "knowing" implies a
general sense of knowledge acquired through reason and the
testimony of the senses.

The Spanish Saint, [St. John of the Cross] is speaking about
the mystical idea of "unknowing", the state in which all
concepts and mental filters have been set aside.  In that state
of unknowing, we rise above the elaborate constructions of the
logical mind and come to rest in pure awareness ("knowing by
unknowing").  He is contrasting true, unfiltered knowing, gnosis,
with the mere accumulations and organization of information.

To be unknowing in this sense is to encounter every instant
entirely as it is, in pure wonder, without projections, without
anticipation or agitation.  [Whereas] the intellectual mind.....
is always processing, analyzing and making everything fit
within its comprehension.  In interprets.
Awareness can step beyond the intellect to fully apprehend
reality...

This state of supreme unknowing is not perception in the sense of
drawing in and interpreting exterior input through the senses.  In
normal perception, the intellect sifts and sorts that sensory data
and formulates it into a working hypothesis of what reality is.

...the mystic's unknowing is the centered awareness of unfiltered
reality.....without an egoic agenda.  The full awareness in this
state of unknowing does not sift reality, it bathes in it.

"The transcendence  of "knowledge".....is found to be an
experience of "the deepest ecstasy/of the Divine Essence."
[as St. John of the Cross calls it].

Ivan M Granger
Commentary from: This Dance of Bliss

Poetry Chaikhana

"Unknowing knowing" - St. John of the Cross

I entered the unknown,
and there I remained unknowing,
all knowledge transcended.

Where I entered I knew not,
but seeing myself there,
not knowing where,
great things then made themselves known.
What I sensed I cannot say,
for I remained unknowing,
all knowledge transcended.

In this peace and purity
was perfect knowledge.
In profound solitude
I understood with absolute clarity
something so secret
that I was left stammering,
all knowledge transcended.

So deep was I within,
so absorbed, so transported,
that all senses fled,
and outer awareness fell away.
My spirit received the gift
of unknowing knowing,
all knowledge transcended.

He who reaches this realm
loses himself,
for all he once knew
now is beneath his notice,
and his mind so expands
that he remains unknowing,
all knowledge transcended.

And the higher he rises
the less he knows;
That is the dark cloud
that shines in the night.
The one who knows this
always remains unknowing,
all knowledge transcended.

This knowing by unknowing
is of such exalted power,
that the disputations of the learned
fail to grasp it,
for their knowledge does not reach
to knowing by unknowing,
all knowledge transcended.

Of such supreme perfection
is this knowledge
that no faculty or method of mind
can comprehend it;
but he who conquers himself
with this unknowing knowing,
will always transcend.

And if you are ready to receive it,
this sum of all knowledge is discovered
in the deeper ecstasy
of the Divine Essence.
Goodness and grace
grant us this unknowing,
all knowledge transcended.

St. John of the Cross
(1542-1591)
Original title: "I Entered the Unknown"
From: This Dance of Bliss
by Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

The "Infinite In-Between"

Art by Mitra Banejad

Cradled in the "Infinite In-Between",
like the space between words, or
the breathless pause between thoughts,
that space of Stillness of Being -
Pure Awareness unfolding ItSelf
within me...

I bow before the Mystery,
the limitless, boundaryless Infinite
Beingness that just IS;
that lives ItSelf through/as this body-mind.

I cannot help myself.
I must bow inwardly before the Ineffable
that fills this being...
The pull of "The Beloved" is so strong...

I am prostrate within - unable to move;
not out of some false sense of piety,
or self-negation, or false effort to attain -
but out of sincere and genuine adoration
for that which can't be named or spoken,
but which is Alive within me.
My Heart kicks in recognition...

It is the Nameless that calls to me, from within.
The deep Presence of the pureness of Existence...
The Living, Breathing Being that "I" am;
not the surface persona of thoughts, perceptions,
and feelings...  but the deepest Essence of Being
ItSelf invites me inward to ItSelf...
How could "i" resist...

I willingly succumb, collapsing internally into the Formless,
and find myself fluidly suspended in Its Breath,
Cradled in Its Rhythm,
Dissolved in the purity of Being beyond being;
the quintessential "Infinite In-Between"
of untainted Knowing Awareness.

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 7, 2018

~

Note:  the phrase "Infinite In-Between" just rolled out onto
the page in the Silence the morning that I wrote this - and
then the poem emerged.  I know someone will tell me there is
no "in-between."  I understand.  Sometimes the words just
come as they come, prior to mind or definition.  In this case
there is no particular "meaning" for the phrase "Infinite In-Between"
except my experience of it that morning as described in the poem.
My only "intention" in writing is to inspire, as I am inspired to write.
May it do so, no matter if your mind wants to argue with the words.:)

_/\_

Namaste

~

Top photo of painting via
In The Garden Of the Beloved

I Am Undone - Brian Thompson

I am undone.

I no longer remain,
and yet, I Am.

All that remains,
is this beautiful nothingness of all that Is;
a suchness of being beyond any event, memory or experience,
a knowingness transcendent of any concept,
including the illusions of space, continuity and time.

I know only
this presence of knowing
that knows only itself;
an empty space of infinite silence,
that contains no thing, no purpose and no meaning,
but from which all things, purpose and meanings arise.

I am indistinguishable,
yet, in me all things are distinguished.

I am the seemingly aspect-less one.

In this presence that I Am,
where the appearance of me and you,
of this and that and everything in between
seems to unfold, all such ideas dissolve
into the invisible truth of
None.

I know only
this blissful plenitude of all-pervading peace,
into which the dream of the universe unfolds,
where consciousness has awoken
within the void of the Absolute,
and has blissfully announced
awareness of itself as,
I Am.

Brian Thompson
Zen Thinking

Thank you No Mind's Land :)

~

...know oneself as the Knowing with which
all experience is known...
There is just transparent knowing
and you are that Knowing...

Rupert Spira

~

Photo - Fat globules in a pan
digitally zoom blurred