The Play of Emptiness - Sunyalila's Blog

the term "integral"

2006-05-20T01:49:00.001-07:00

written 8/1999

There is something that feels to me pretentious about using the term "integral". I don't try and live an integral life. I live and my integrality is a result of my integratedness and that is ever changing moment to moment, open to the silence and divine will in action in conjunction with the totality of all conditions.

I used to say marriage is not a goal; it is a result of the love and subsequent commitment two share. Integral is a result of the unity one feels with beingness as connected to the whole. I'm not knocking the maps for some but there is a point that the assumptions, preconceptions and fear of the unknown that fuel them can bar the recognition of a deeper truth and impetus.

Facing the Past with Present-Moment Awareness

2006-05-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

Re: Repentance=Rebirth

Posted by Ellen on Jan-3-01 3:57pm
(In reply to: Repentance=Rebirth posted by Jana on Jan-3-01 11:31am)

"Repentence isn't sorrow for the past. The past is dead and isn't worth a moments grief. Repentance is a change of mind, a radically different vision of Reality." Anthony De Mello

Actions out of that change in awareness, may bring about a balance to and congruence with one's relationships. This may entail facing with others in a new light where the past is presently active as a divisive or distorting factor. I would agree not to waste energy on the past and to recreate now but feel a responsibilty towards the realities created from a presently active past. In that sense the past is not dead, until it is faced with the light of present moment awareness.

I say this (or am sensitive to this) because I have known people who have abused others in their relationships, have a shift in awareness and change their behaviour from now on, though totally divorced from and in denial of the past and the reverberations of their past behaviour (stemming from a conscious disconnect and sense of separation from the world around them - and at an even more essential and emotional level, with themselves). I would not invalidate their shift in awareness or their "radically different vision of reality" but say that it had not integrated to the level of the heart (as one heart)and their own self-forgiveness so as to be able to face the past with themselves and therefore others. This extends to being limited in their authenticity through relationship in the present moment too. In that sense, this new light may be overshadowed by a presently active past calling for the attention of love through its shadow reverberations.

a discussion on the Ernest Becker List ...

2006-04-26T02:09:00.001-07:00

J: "I believe the only way for humanity to unite and stop fighting each other would be if we were attacked by aliens from outer space. I cannot conceive of any other way it could happen."

Ellen: I understand you to mean that being attacked by aliens would tease a perspective of a united-as-one "us" against an alien-from-us/earth "them". Indeed, something that extreme might have an effect like that, at least at superficial levels, and at best help catalyze a broadening perspective about our place in the whole. A global threat may motivate our coming together and through that begin to illuminate at deeper levels our illusions of separation. However, as long as we are thinking in "us against them" terms I don't really see that there is a true change in world view or consciousness. It might extend the tribal mind mentality from the family, tribe, religion or nation to the earth and be a step in our development towards life everywhere as "all one tribe". As long as we still identify through a sense of separation and division, that will be mirrored to us through all of our relations in life even if our focus changes in so far as uniting planet earth against an alien-to-earth enemy. Unless we investigate at causal levels our sense of separation from all, I have observed that there is still a self-centric rather than world-centric world-view operating.

J: I think that my hypothetical "attack" might, for a while, unite, as you say,on the surface. My thought was really that I can't think of anything that will eliminate what we have seen for the last several millennia. I agree with what you said. I read it generally to say that as long as we are still humans, we will continue to act like humans act. Eric Fromm, in The Heart of Man, Its Genius for Good and Evil, said something like "most [people] are half-awake children" [pardon the paraphrase-my book is at work and I'm not] He goes on to discuss how most need a narcissistic "leader", a parent figure, who expresses confidence if not competence, to give them the strength to make the mistakes in which the planet's population currently engages. I take him to mean that the average person is in many ways like a child in the developmental progress of his psychological self. Humankind therefore acts as you describe, as history reveals, and the world political scene illustrates. Another book, Dictators and Disciples, by Gustav Bychowski, chronicles the identical effect of leaders and followers from Caesar, Cromwell, Robespierre, Hitler, and Stalin. I hope there is a way to progress beyond that, but I am becoming increasing skeptical of the possibility, hence my original post.

Ellen: I would say that as long as a sense of separation and the appearances that are an outgrowth of that inform our actions and propagate a resistance to feared outcomes, we will continue to suffer and want to protect ourselves from what we perceive as threats. I do not see this as a result of being or acting human or nonhuman per se, (although this is prevalent amongst many humans in western cultures) but as being informed by misunderstanding and ignorance - or simply uninvestigated thoughts. And I think this is also perpetuated, to a large degree, as a cultural phenomenon. The tribal or group mind is not prone to investigate its assumptions because not being based on those assumptions would challenge the foundation of its own existence. Individuals who identify through/as/with the group or culture are also not prone to looking too closely at their assumptions or deconstructing their cherished beliefs because they will have their very sense of survival invested in them. I feel that what is so feared about the unknown is the ideas we have about it and not so much its actuality - and even more than that, being no one. Our beliefs give us a sense of who we are. Denial and resistance take a lot more energy than their lack ... but they are often unconscious and habituated (as well as invested in and giving a sense of value and meaning to life), so a recognition of them might seem less likely than their perpetuation.

I feel that the awareness of the divinely intelligent, all-embracing heart can transcend fear, world-views and differences. The heart is what connects the one to its many faces in relationship without forgetting its essential unity and oneness with all. The heart as it breathes through life is a living tantra, weaving its nondual suchness through relationship with all. The awareness of the heart can hold two sides of a conflict and see the truth within both. It is one with all and therefore unifying. Communicating through the heart is integrative and a channel and pathway of and to transcendent mind. The heart's medium is one of love, acceptance and allowance. It is a medium of sensitivity that meets self and other in and as the heart of its most tender heart. It is a medium of humility that knows that there is "a beyond" and does not need to defend itself. It does not argue with what is. Its sword of truth is a sword that cuts in one.

Aspects of our social structures and governments are a projection of our self-tyranny and our conflicts are an expression of our sense of inner division. I see us historically treating others the way we have been treated. The abused abuse. We treat others the way that we have learned to treat ourselves and continue to perpetuate this dynamic generation after generation. I sense that as we learn to listen to ourselves and give ourselves the most compassionate and heartened of what we feel we should get from others; when we recognize the dictators, disciples, tyrants and tyrannized within for what they are, this pattern will no longer continue. I personally feel that recognizing my illusions of separation and the way I contract against life or what is arising within and healing my sense of inner division is my first responsibility in effecting change in the world. Without our recognizing these calls within, they continue to call louder and louder and mirror the distortions of their pain and the thoughts and beliefs that birthed them through their expressions in life and the way in which we perceive and meet our conditions. I see through it all that consciousness, as and through us, is moving towards its self-awareness and recognition, illuminating itself to itself. Whether this results in development that moves from self-centric to world-centric or an evolution of consciousness on a mass scale in my time, I do not know. But I do sense that if in our wanting to effect change in the world, we come from a sense of division, we merely recreate that division in the world and do not facilitate any kind of real transformation.

A: We might prefer to welcome any alien invaders and make peace with them.

Ellen: Yes, and I would like to add that I feel that would best be served by welcoming what we perceive as the alien invaders within and opening our own eyes and hearts to our own folly and making peace. When we do that, we might see that what we thought were invaders were just visitors and what we thought were aliens were merely other faces of our very own self, and once we realize that, our welcome might be of a very different nature then it would have been when we thought we were being invaded by aliens. ;-)

~~~

S: You say, "I would say that as long as a sense of separation and the appearances that are an outgrowth of that inform our actions and propagate a resistance to feared outcomes, we will continue to suffer and want to protect ourselves from what we perceive as threats."
Yes, that's exactly what we human beings will continue to do. It's called "life" or "existence," for "existence" IS "a sense [or feeling] of separation." My question: Do you think that the way to solve our very human problems is to feel that we no longer exist? Or, asked another way, how would we overcome our sense of (or our feeling of) separation if that's what life itself is? ("Death" is too easy an answer.)

Ellen: I don't agree with the premise that "existence IS a sense of separation." I think that it can feel like that and an individuated sense of self can even be (and often is) defined by a sense of separation. But I do not feel that essential being is defined by separation or that parts are not holonic (simultaneously whole and part) or sensed as part of a greater whole, or the whole itself in which all phenomena arises. I think that a way to "overcome" our sense of separation is to experience it for what it is and know our essential unity and oneness with all. Recognizing or being able to differentiate our uniqueness does not preclude this. In fact, deeply recognizing both the universality of our individual uniqueness and of the similarities we share within our human condition can facilitate a greater sense of our interconnectedness and oneness. A gateway to being able to recognize our essential oneness is also, as I mention below, the Heart.

Accepting your premise that there is something to overcome, if there is a way to "overcome" something it is to not try and overcome it (you just concretize your illusions of separation from it and "its" reality) but embrace it and see it deeply for what it is.

You asked, "Do you think that the way to solve our very human problems is to feel that we no longer exist?" Realizing that this list seems to be primarily made up of existentialists, I do not know if you meant what I heard you really ask or if you would appreciate in the light that I understand it what my true answer is to that. But, let's give it a go. Someone (Nisargadatta? Ranjit Maharaj? Ramana Maharshi?) once said something like, "Our glory begins when we cease to exist." As I understand this, it was not a reference to dying or what happens when leaving the body. It was not a reference to someone who bypassed the healthy development of ego or a sense of self. This refers to a deep realization of the fiction of identity through a realization of/as the awareness in which it all arises. In not needing to defend any separate sense of self there is a natural willingness that goes along with that to be no one. Because we often substantiate a sense of self with what we believe and think, there is subsequently also no need to "know" for the purpose of that. There is nothing in the way of what IS beyond our preconceptions and the free flow of essential being, consciousness and bliss (satchidananda).

So in the light of all of this, getting back to your question: "Do you think that the way to solve our very human problems is to feel that we no longer exist?" I would say that a way would be to realize that we no longer and never did exist as separate. I would say that a way would be to realize that we exist essentially, as no one. I would say that at the same time we exist as one with all and the totality of all conditions. I would say that at the same time we exist as radically unique individuals, as soul and as the animating force of the universe. I would say that we are the awareness that is prior to existence and prior to conditions and that when we deeply recognize that there is no division, and no one or no thing to divide against. I think that to realize our essential unity it would be useful to realize the nature of thought and belief. I think it would be useful to ask who it is that sees, thinks, knows, believes and cares. It would be useful to realize what is here now, including the feelings and thoughts that arise and be willing to investigate beliefs and thoughts that lead to suffering.

S: I would be the first to agree with you that oneness and unity is our essence, our "essential being." But how does knowing "our essential unity and oneness with all" negate existence as the feeling of separation?

Ellen: Have you asked yourself what it is that knows this. Does That feel separation? Is that ever not here?

S: No matter how much unity or oneness we feel, we cannot NOT feel a sense of separation.

Ellen: I see that is your belief.

S: Even the fact that "unity" and "oneness" exist as words implies that there are separations to unify and make one.

Ellen: That is true. Hence the limitation of language as a medium of translation and relying solely upon the logic of words for your understanding. and if you speak from a place of awareness without division these words are understood from where they come from, and both the way the illusions of duality are propagated and the nottwo from which they arise are illuminated.

S: To think and talk about oneness is to think and talk about separation. To separate the two is like trying to separate "up" from "down." Therefore, to negate separation is to negate unity, for what is it that you are unifying? I will add that our feeling of separation is an illusion, but that is what life is--an illusion.

Ellen: To whom or to what? What is it that knows this?

S: What do you mean by "no need to know"?

Ellen: In this context what I mean is that we tend to define ourselves as separate identities in relation to something else. How we feel physically, where we are spatially and what we think, believe or know in relation to something else gives meaning and substance to who we think we are as an individuated and separate entity. What I was saying was that in the awareness in which all arises there is no need to "know" for the purpose of substantiating a sense of self. There is no invalidation of self if there is "not knowing" because there is awareness that there is no self as separate from anything in the first place. Most people confabulate some knowing just to placate their insecurity with the unknown. If they do not know, they fear that they will cease to exist - in the sense of being annihilated or obliterated . In fact, many people would rather believe horrible things about what their reality is than be faced with not knowing because not knowing either points them at psychological levels to their lack of worthiness or at deeper levels to what they fear about being no one.

S: Your last sentence (satchidananda) really confuses me. Can you explain it?

Ellen: Satchidananda is a Sanskrit term. It is the trinity of transcendent existence, self-awareness and self-delight. sat: pure beingness or existence - chit: pure consciousness; the essential consciousness of the Spirit - ananda: the bliss of the spirit which is the secret source and support of all existence. I said, "There is nothing in the way of what IS beyond our preconceptions and the free flow of essential being, consciousness and bliss (satchidananda). " In other words, in not needing to know, we do not confabulate knowings and hold onto preconceptions that obstruct the free flow of satchidananda and the truth knowledge/consciousness that comes from beyond a mind that reflects a separate sense of self.

S: To repeat, I don't think the illusion of separation negates the unity or oneness that is.

ElIen: I agree that nothing can negate oneness. In addition, Adyashanti said something like, "the non-dual is not the 'not-dual' but includes the dual.". Nonduality refers to being without division - it does not refer to the absence of the appearances of two or the multiplicity of the one.

S: We human beings have truly a long, long way to go in the investigation of our beliefs and thoughts. And not very many of us are even trying. So, our true goal, should be how to try and how to help others try.

Ellen: hmmm...however well-meaning, I think that as long as we have that as an agenda we are feeding our own uninvestigated thoughts and the ego that they fuel. I feel that we have a lot on our plate investigating our own thoughts and beliefs and that when we recognize them for what they are to the point where we know self and other as one, then the compassion and action that comes from there is naturally transformative and quite different from that which feels divided within and against the world and what it judges as its imperfections.

S: Here's a saying of mine that might give you pause: "Love would truly be wonderful if it could come just by understanding."

Ellen: and without that condition, what would love be?

falling into our finites

2006-04-18T03:44:00.000-07:00

we fall into our finites
suckling the amrit of our heart
we are sunya enwrapped saguna
tickling the emptiness alive in form.

sparks flying of our essence
seeping across the infinite terrains of eternity
singing songs of delight, fire flies swooning,
birthing the joys of our heaven inside the wombs of our earth,

let's fall into our wonder and feed eternities on our starlight

6-5-03

Integral Communication

2006-04-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

Someone at a Ken Wilber Forum invited ideas about what integral communication is and this is what came:

Integral Communication is:

-Honest communication and honest communication starts with an honesty with ourselves.

- Listening - and listening starts with listening very closely to ourselves including to what in us needs to contract, resist or defend.

- "Being present"; and that too starts with seeing ourselves and beyond ourselves.

- The ability to see beyond and including self is to see the interconnectedness of all and to see self, other and all as nottwo. It is to feel identity and yet not attach to it. It is to know Self as formlessness/emptiness/nothingness and recognize the pain of separation, resistance and ego for what they are when they arise. It is to trust in the unknown and it is to essentially and deeply know self and other as one.

- Seeing and honoring AQAL (a Wilberian reference meaning "all quadrants, all levels").

-Integral Communication is world-centric and not self-centric and is informed by an interest in the greatest good for all.

-A key to being able to embrace AQAL without solely deferring to it mentally and unconsciously disconnecting from what might not be emotionally integrated is the divinely intelligent and all embracing heart. The heart is what connects the one to its many faces in relationship without forgetting its essential unity and oneness with all. The heart as it breathes through life is a living tantra, weaving its nondual suchness through relationship with all. The awareness of the heart can hold two sides of a conflict and see the truth within both. It is one with all and therefore unifying. Communicating through the heart is integrative and a channel and pathway of and to transcendent mind. The heart's medium is one of love, acceptance and allowance. It is a medium of sensitivity that meets self and other in and as the heart of its most tender heart. It is a medium of humility that knows that there is "a beyond" and does not need to defend itself. It does not argue with what is. Its sword of truth is a sword that cuts in one.

-Integral Communication starts with the willingness to not know and an ability to surrender to the Silence; an ability to let go of preconceptions enough to really hear what the other is saying and the divine inspiration coming through self, other all that is transcendent of assumptions and mental knowings.

-Integral Communication is responsible communication which has to do with taking responsibility for the way we in which we perceive reality and recognizing that how we feel or interpret something is a creative act of our own choosing.

-Integral Communication is having a mastery with Manjushri's sword and being able to "turn around" our projections and see how they apply to ourselves or how the opposite of what they are might also be true.

-Responsible communication is healing in that it makes amends when called for.

-Integral communication is integrative in that what it voices is seen, understood and made real by its voicing and at levels hitherto unseen before the event of its arising.

-Integral communication is cocreative and mutually emergent, seen and understood. It is dynamic, synthetic, radial and experienced as perfect reciprocity. (there is much more here to discuss)

-Antecedent to integral communication is being willing to question all of our thoughts and beliefs and inquire into what we might consider the most cherished of them.

-Integral communication is fluid, process oriented, authentic communication yet responsibly communicated.

-Integral communication is communication that seeks to meet rather than compete.

-Integral communication is communication that comes from a will (of truth) towards the realization of truth. ~~~

when this thread started i was on a different wave-length with this - i think it was more into seeing what is 'always already' integral and acting in the world - and without needing conditions and prerequisites except to see what might be veiled. anyway, this is a beginning that poured out after i said i wanted to take a long siesta from the internet. it is incomplete and has not yet been associated with integral communication for our message board medium. i am sure i can keep going with it but if i do, i might morph into my emachine and give more meaning to its "e". ;-)

love and namaste,

Ellen

Whose resistance? - Feedback to a friend -

2006-04-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

Question: With X, there is this underlying and everpresent malaise, a kind of tension that has been there for a few years.

Overall I feel like X won't meet me halfway, not even a quarter way...is it just me, or is he really that guarded and aloof? Or am I truly as deluded and arrogant as he implies? My problem with him has been that he is so bent on "rational only" discussions, yet denies any underlying currents than can and do exist, and simply won't address them. He won't let go of his ideas of me and doesn't hear what I say. I do not feel that I am giving "unsolicited opinions" or psychoanalyzing him without his permission" but that I am sharing with him to get beyond the resistance.

Anyways, if you have time I'd love your feedback. Anything you have to offer would be appreciated.

Reply: What I notice is this: In having had my own problems like this in the past, I can feel your side of this. - I have found that my peace could come not from them changing or my trying to fight the way it is and to change them and how they communicate or perceive me, but in noticing my preconceptions of what I thought they should see and how I felt they should behave for what they are.

It is not our business whether X is open and fluid in discussions or guarded and aloof. It is not our business whether he meets us half way, all the way or not at all. It is not our business what he thinks of us. and making it our business is a kind of arrogance... and insanity.

X is being X and acting the way he always has. When people call us on being arrogant when we are coming from wanting to openly communicate and get beyond obstacles to greater understanding and intimacy, it can seem completely unreasonable, inflexible and off-the-wall of them. It appears they are not team-playing and seeking to meet us. It appears/feels like that they are not listening, intimidating and trying to be right while making us wrong. They don't seem to see our heart or intent - - but I have found that they are mirroring and reacting to exactly what in us needs them to be different than how they are. Especially when we are invested in an outcome, they are reflecting that point of division in us.

I think that telling each other our truth leads to intimacy and gives a chance for transformation. But the truth can have many layers of clothing on top of it - and it can be what is defined by the heart or what comes from reasoning more or less disconnected from that or trying to defend it. Telling someone they "have resistance" is different from saying that you want to be closer to them.

Your acceptance and really hearing them might be a far more potent and empowering teaching that points them to their resistance than pointing them to their resistance. Or even your honest lack of acceptance and resignation that they will not change can be very powerful as an expression of your truth, and edges. In fact, that is kind of like what X and Y have done with you - just leaving you with yourself. I say all of this having held the belief that people's behavior can change and that their behavior is not 'who they are.' Yet, there is a point where if our own sense of peace and well-being rests on their changing in some way, it is more about us than them. And that is where it is healthy to look closer and recognize that 'X is being X perfectly' - and to feel anything else is arguing with reality - with the way it is - and that is a recipe for suffering.

You might wonder where social activism in making the 'wrongs right' can take root if we are not railing against the way it is but it depends on how we do it and where we are coming from. This may appear paradoxical but if in our wanting to effect change in the world, we come from a sense of division, we merely recreate that division in the world and not facilitate any kind of real transformation.

Not expecting X to be different or see you freshly while at the same time being willing to see and respond to him freshly also might seem like a contradiction. The more you stop concerning yourself with how he sees you and that he is not letting go of his preconceptions about you, the more you can respond to him freshly and that is all that will matter. You can see that he is not listening to what you think you are saying or that he is reacting to someone who you feel you aren't. But unless he has invited it on some level, talking about what might drive him to do this is useless.

Trust your innocence and express your truth and the rest - what he does with it - is his business. You might think this that not caring what he does with it is a lack of compassion ... but I think it is much more compassionate ... and it is much more compassionate to yourself too. You spare yourself the headache of trying to change things that you have no control over. Give yourself the break and understanding that you seek from others.

What I feel is "my business" is to look at what or who cares about others' reactions to me and what I say. I have noticed that when that is investigated to its depths, the knot of that concern is seen for what it is and can unravel along with the sense of "me" that needed something to be other than what it was for its own sense of identity.

~~~

Wednesday, March 22, 2006
We see what we know ourselves to be

We see what we know ourselves to be. And with awareness love sees love and can recognize the love that at levels doesn't recognize itself .... Enlightenment sees enlightenment and the enlightenment that at levels doesn't recognize itself... The idea of self that we call ego sees ego with ego and judges it.... Hatred sees hate and hates it .... Limitation sees within the confines of its own self-idea. Brilliance and expansiveness can only be seen by that which it is.

Synchronicity

2006-03-28T14:38:00.000-08:00

Synchronicity is an event where the connections that are everywhere anyway are unveiled along with, by grace or invention, their messages and meanings. It is a kind of clairvoyance in seeing the inherent connections, similarities and harmonies in such a way that time meets the eternal. The interconnectedness and perfection of everything reflects itself infinitely and points us to this infinitely no matter which way we look, though we often resist what is before us preferring to see some other idea that we think should be there and not recognizing what is before us beyond those preconceptions. This ever-present Self-reflection/revealment can be found in what might seem to be dark or unfortunate circumstances too, as beautifully expressed here in a poem by Rumi:

" ...
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest ...

I can explain this ...
but .. it would break ...
the glass cover
on your heart,
and there's no fixing that ... "

We can also say that an event of synchronicity is distinct from the appearance of "co-incidence" or "two incidents", because it is the graceful revealment of what is nottwo. 3/11/06

God's Echo

2006-03-08T23:24:00.000-08:00

by

Ellen Davis

Essentially, there is only Love and what does not know itself yet as Love.

As Love meets Love in form, as it recognizes itself, it spreads everywhere waking itself up to its own glory!

We are here as God in time, experiencing ourself in infinite diversity.

~~~

All writing by Ellen Davis copyright 1993, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005

Table of Contents

There is only love

Part One: Enfolded in Mystery

Enfolded in Mystery
The Unknown
No center point
The Play never ends
The Heart
The Heart can hold two sides of a conflict
Gone is a story
Stillness is known when measuring stops
Form and Formlessness Getting it On
Transcendence
Gaia
Elemental Journey

Part Two: Songs to the Beloved

He
Love Eternal
Mouth on Lichee Nut
The One in the Two
This Pair of Eyes
Love Waking up to Itself
Tears
The Higher we Went, the More we Descended
Persephone Rising
We Fall into our Finites
Making Love
Ululation to the Beloved
On Romance

Part Three: Living Eternity in Time

God's Echo
On Dance
What is Grace?
Faith
Devotion
Living the Sacred Moment
Ascent and Descent
Being and Becoming
On Seeking
Trying to see spirit with the mind's eye
The Force that Seeks
The Inherency of Bliss
Love
Embracing the Shadow
No one's Dream
A Hero's Journey
Acceptance and Love
Self-doubt is a destructive use of memory
One Day
On Paradox
On Humor
On Dreams
Dreams and Desire
Rosebud point
Rosebud prong
The Original Separation Experience
Tasting the Rasa
Unity and Multiplicity
Maps
The map is my heart as it becomes ours
When you are in love, all of life is Guru
On Darshan
The Inner Teacher
No greater joy than to touch your feet
He mind of Light
The hour of God is now
How can we not love, it is who we are!
They come to see no one
My true Beloved
On Forgetting

Enfolded in Mystery

Enfolded in mystery ground is groundless and groundless is everywhere making each now home where when entered is like a forgotten dream remembered.

~~~

The Unknown

The unknown is the vast field of life as it stands on that exquisite precipice between the inhale and the exhale that births lands and seas, suns and moons, and all of the mountains and valleys as the progeny of our loves and deaths. The unknown is the formlessness through which form is created and the form which to many hide the pure potentiality of formlessness. The unknown is the next moment that I step into now, as my arms open wide to embrace what comes before me. The unknown, the Silence, the Mystery accessed in time as NOW, is our birthright and the home where when we can rest, we birth and are birthed by eternities.

~~~

If you go deep enough into what you gauge as a center point of emptiness or silence, you will find no center point. Your notion of center point is where you are referencing from in relation to somewhere else. It is what gives you your sense of self.

~~~

The Play never ends, just changes. The process is its completion. Manifestation is God's dance of self-realization and experience in all guises. The awareness of "always already" does not preclude manifestation as a medium of time and process but infuses its eternal now reality into life.

~~~

The heart is what connects the One to its many faces in relationship without forgetting its essential unity and oneness with all. It is what fuels the bhakti; the love and devotion. The heart as it breathes through life is a living tantra, weaving its nondual suchness through relationship with all.

~~~

The awareness of the heart can hold two sides of a conflict and see the truth within both.

~~~

"Gone" is the story we tell ourselves about what we still hold onto.
If you know that time travels from now to now, that will infuse your stories with a taste of eternality.

~~~

Pain, suffering and forgetting are inherent potentialites or probabilities of Being and at an essential level, the play of Bliss.

~~~

Stillness is known when measuring stops.

When measuring stops there is no one of two to measure stillness. It is all one.

Time measures motion in space, motion and space measure time.

Beyond the relative, God measures time through stillness and stillness through Its many faces in time.

Within the relative, stillness cannot be measured as there is no-thing to measure and what is not nottwo (one), can see only its own reflection so there is no-one to measure, only the two, creating motion in space and time; the relative universe.

Within stillness lies the pole to the nonrelative. It would seem paradoxical that within the immeasurable non relative universe stillnesss is measured through time and within the measurable relative universe stillness cannot be measured!

Therein lies a value of meditation and bringing stillness into our lives.

Ommmmm

~~~

Form and Formlessness Getting it On

Towards the One, using the relative to bridge to the non-relative as these bodies temporal in their belief find themselves suddenly breathing into the now, their matter, mater, Mother transparent, shining essence's luminosity, reflecting new light, new appearances and new worlds as consciousness reveals ItSelf, as mater remembers HerSelf and lets go of old decision creating identities, relaxing, rendering Her more malleable to the Divine Will in action - and we see that all of these realities are real as they cannot be but That and the illusion is in their immalleability and the immalleability is the Divine playing hide and seek with ItSelf, experiencing ItSelf in Its infinite diversity - and as the stars are variables in the creation of probable realities, so are the archetypes, so are the you and the me forgetting and then remembering that we are One and then remembering that we are the many, the none, the All and any other measurable and immeasurable variable, each of our individuated signatures in their dance together creating the perfect alchemy for Self-realization and healing the scars of separation making whole the One Body that can play with every speck of ItSelf as the whole And as the part, where veils are lifted revealing every movement as dance and every sound as music until all knows itSelf as Love which It has always been as It waits for deeper recognition and clarification of ItSelf in time and space, this medium of becoming, this glorious expression of the Isness, the Sat expressing It's inherent Chit and Ananda, as Chit and Ananda also express each other and Sat, refining Self-recognition from cacophony to symphony without changing a sound and the ugly to the beautiful without changing the appearance, seeing the Divine Perfection of absolutely everything where the consciousness can then reflect ItSelf with new appearances, new symbolic representations of ItSelf circling back into and out of time and space, a spiral of Love, ascension and descension, involution and evolution spiraling to Self-knowing, removing the veil off of the spiritualization of the material substance as we in more and ever-expanding ways materialize the spiritual substance until these statements of differentiation no longer make sense because all is That, until the Divine wants to again say hello to itSelf but this time, who it says hello to recognizes who is saying hello and that the all-blissful has birthed Its pain and tortures and the all-knowing Its ignorance and confusion for the pure enjoyment of the Play, the Truth Consciousness infiltrating every pocket of matter, every cell knowing itSelf within the eternal embrace, spirit and matter endlessly making love.

~~~

Transcendence

Transcendence is what we see when we look backwards and notice that there has been a shift. What is transcended is not the experience but a transcendence of the resistance to it. It is actually a total immersion into and embrace of the experience. Doing that transforms the experience and the appearance of it.

Transcendence is what can happen through the embrace of being fully right here right now with whatever arises.

If transcendence is merely a goal where one reaches with mind in a way to get beyond itself, it adds to the illusions of its duality and the sense of an "escape" as a result of denial, suppression or repression.

~~~

Gaia

you'll see me smoldering in the earth
digging deeper into her marrow.
shiny hot molten lava
reflecting the face of God.
streaming up limbs and loins
undulating ooze
gurgling
clawing slap back trap release -
sizzling
spits cinereous spew faugh and fire.
painting the architecture of her life
filling oceans with her tears,
shadows with her yesteryears,
time with her tomorrows.
essence birthing life springs
eternal.
a chrysalis of anywhats and whens,
anyhows and wheres,
behind which no thing waits
for the touch,
the touch
flowering essence throughout time
eternal

~~~

Elemental Journey

While in eternity I visited fire and found myself in all of the elements.
I felt my dance with wood.
I yielded, becoming it; ravished, resisting it; ravaged, besieged.
Sparked by its water elements sending smoke signals of our love making;
Air teasing sparks of sizzling, popping, whining moans.
My flame a blaze of blue, ice hot, still, disappearing.
Becoming wood, feeling my surrender and fight with fire,
A passionate dual at moments stopped,
Flames disappearing inside of me as my strength of stillness hushed all movement;
We become one, a communion, a marriage, fires of ecstasy,
our progeny dropping from us as orgasmic timbers of glowing, sustained bliss, devouring each other to ash as they ignite us into greater abandon.
I tasted eternity and visited earth, air and water and found myself in all of the elements.

~~~

Songs to the Beloved

He

His ocean embraces my wave,
As it crashes upon his shore.
He breathes my finites into his infinities,
My infinities into his lore.
His trickling tendrils blossom
Integrities I stretch to fathom.
He tenderly touches my raw,
I melt into our oblivion.
No matter His Play helter-skelter,
Its chaos illuminates true order;
A variance of His time's liberation.
Still and immutable His foundation.
His fire flows through my blood,
Igniting mysteries and passions.
Our hearts aglory beat as one,
Bodies yearning for consummation.
Like night separated from day,
The tease of our proximities,
Birth suns, moons and stars
In the ocean of our infinities.
His beauty breaks my heart open,
His soul sings colors as yet seen;
Of enchanted places which beckon
Tomorrows birthing prayers that teem.
Exploding me in blisstacies,
Dissolving me to naught,
Shattering yesterdays' knowings,
Daring deeper nows not taught.

~~~

Love Eternal

She walks in beauty like the night*
And the moon cloaked in heaven casting shadow and light.
Her life knows no boundaries, in it her soul takes flight,
My lover, sweet beloved, soft Mother of Sight.
Her eyes see beauty, perfection and no fight
Between yes, no, high, low, dark and light.
Cherishing diversity, celebrating its play,
Honoring even those closed to the day.
Mistress of Truth, Master of Love,
Stretched out in surrender, so below as above.
Infinity I do see when I meet her gaze;
Eternal, supernal, beyond mind's maze.
In her arms I rest from future and past,
Until the prayer comes for it to ever last
Where she laughs and laughs and laughs in my night,
Tickling all of the cobwebs out of their fright.
A child, her innocence giving birth to creation,
Seeds sprouting spirit within manifestation.
All of this she sees so equally in me,
Embracing every opportunity with her lover to be.
In joy, in gratitude, at each other's feet we meet.
Alone, together, always complete.
Greater a whole our union creates
Freedom, healing, opening new gates.
Our trust in God, revealing life impersonal.
Our alignment with Truth and what is invincible.
Our focus on Love and what brings greater balance.
Our insurance a surrender to the present and its Silence.
Splendour is the Grace which brought her to me
as my sun as my moon as my mystery.
In each other we see ourselves and the Divine,
Masks thinning, spirits winning, souls forward to shine

*The first line, "She walks in beauty like the night" is from a poem by Lord Byron called She Walks in Beauty. - It was given in a radio poetry contest as the first line of poem to complete and I didn't know it was from Byron and hadn't read his poem until several years after writing my poem.

~~~

Mouth on Lichee Nut
Ready to tongue and lip
Wet, slippery,
Smooth soft flesh
Sliding falumptuously
through full cheeks
Tasting perfume,
Virgin roundness,
Sweetness
waiting to be devoured,
Bit into
Anticipating eternal succulence
Shunted by
Teeth meeting large pit
I laugh at wave forgetting ocean as she looks at the impressions she has made in her sand
the impressions of a moment unexpected,
separated, exiled.
What she looks at is no longer there;
a memory singing harmonies with the echo of her laughter.

~~~

The One in the Two

I feel You like my essence desiring more of itself.
It can feel like an anguished longing with just a slight shift.
I give it its Play and remember.

This love knows no bounds.
It seeks to merge with itself and multiply.
It seeks to inundate, penetrate and permeate the world.

You ignite me. I am on fire.
Without Your touch I feel I will burn to ash.
With Your touch I feel I will burn to ash.
As this something gives birth to a greater nothing,
this nothing gives birth to a greater something.
I am
being breathed by this love.

Waxing fullness, Empty me!
Waning emptiness, Fill me!

a dance of desire having its way.
a dance in time
a dance of rythmic pulsing:
a part to come together
to come a part
to come together

a dance where time stops.
a dance where empty and full
are one and the same.
past present and future
One
dance, dancer and danced
One
me and you
One

and yearning again.

She so enjoys the yearning.
It's her greeting as she re-enters time
and re members her forgetting
and forgets her re membering.
It is her as God
feeling Its power through her powerlessness,
through the two.

through this "Take me!"
through this "I want you!"

as the one in the two
seeks for itself
until we find ourselves
as One

~~~

this pair of eyes delight
in your kaleidoscopic reflections of infinitude
as they dance with my own

just yesterday i was saying that life and death happen like breathing, that when i slow things down enough to feel that moment after the exhale, i face my own dissolution and the birth ahead.

like a blink

stochastic apearances may hide purpose behind the veneer
timeless vision removes the veils
a blink; death and birth again
in the pindrop of an instant

eyes closed may be open to worlds unknown,
arouse others to open more.
some eyes see the others as closed,
while we all stimulate butterfly kisses
within the heart of God.

~~~

Love Waking up to Itself

As Love meets Love in form, as it recognizes itself, it spreads everywhere waking itself up to its own glory!

It is the difference as it wakes up to its sameness through the play of the poles; as it it is embraced in the rapture of the oneheart, tingling more manyness into oneness, more diversity and multiplicity into unity.
it is one tasting itself through two.

sound loves so much it grew ears so that it may hear itself
beauty loves so much it grew eyes so that it may see itself
the senses are born from the love that we are in its delight to taste itself
you are born from the love that i am so that i may love myself
i am your creation
you are my love
we can see this when there is no one to be yours
and no one to be mine
being breathed sublime
faces of the divine
at play
in the fields of
time

~~~

Tears

Your tears spill a river connecting all of the oceans of woe so that they may together wash clean this blood-soiled earth. Your tears are the Divine within humanity crying for ItSelf, mourning what we have forgotten and reminding us of who we are. Will you let yourself drown in these tears, or will you sail on them towards greater wholeness?

~~~

The Higher we Went, the More we Descended

when we met, i heard your call to walk the vast immensities of void and silence, to know complete emptiness, to dissolve, to know freedom through
absolute deconstruction as my own and as Your call to me, and I was drawn into you as moth to flame to traverse the underworlds with you and taste the nectar of her nether regions, to taste them through you, as you, to know Your nether regions and see through them these others faces of God. You entered me and I felt buoyant as if being carried by your wings into the heavens and the higher we went the more we descended. And as we descended you penetrated those tightest of places where the greatest torture was our distance and misunderstanding. - we heard each others' yeses as no's and you pushed deeper into me with your absence, I surrendered to your light, but felt you pulling away creating vast caverns of darkness beckoning to me to come and explore. as i was held by our love and pulled a part by our darkness i entered it more deeply to see as you do, -as i reached and grasped for you crying for our heart, you heard my pleas as judgment, our love pulling me in one direction and all that fights it, that is its magnetic pole pushing me in the opposite direction. - i felt hind and quartered, split a part, and as i started spinning out into fragments of dust with no where to land that made any sense, you woke me up kissing my raw with your tender and we once again found ourselves where we had been all along, flying through the multiverse, united, our many arms transformed into wings, that tickle, tease, caress and soar us through the heights and depths of life eternal ...

~~~

Persephone Rising

dancing to her soul's prayer,
she necessarily finds
where love has not come to know itself,
where the experience of freedom can forget itself.

how can i give up my soul
when i am wherever i could give it?
when it is all i can give it to?
i am perspehone looking for hades in heaven
"where does not light spring eternal
and the earth's plentiful bounty
flow through God's unending breath?"
ecstasy found her chink
in the delight of her passionate yearning,
as she turned a corner looking for hidden conditions,
maya upstaged her bliss with upsurges of its discontent.
seduced by desire, she plunges into its bowels
i wake up through my hidden fear
looking out of your eyes
at my two faces marred
where the light of integrity appears gone
fallen angel, found her underworld
in the nightmare of her discontent
and i smile as we fly past
through Janus's gateways
bridging beginnings and endings
our wing tips spanning integrities
stretched out beyond the sun.

~~~

we fall into our finites
suckling the amrit of our heart
we are sunya enwrapped saguna
tickling the emptiness alive in form

sparks flying of our essence
sweeping across the infinite terrains of eternity
singing songs of delight, fire flies swooning,
birthing the joys of our heaven inside the wombs of our earth

let's fall into our wonder and feed eternities on our starlight

~~~

Making Love

sparks falling on us
illuminating the hunger of our now,
lapping up all that had been left behind,
madly tasting every morsel,
a passion of delight
hearing the scent of each touch and sight,
seeing the sound of
every belief, judgement and grief,
licking the wounds that name what is profane,
our welcome creating a transmutation of the pain;
our yesses enveloping the no's,
a creatrix of home for the rejected,
oneheart melting the frost off our fears, dissolving them into the mulch of our compassion,
vortices of now where
nowherewhens are free to be
another breath without story,
future falling back into our dreams
birthing dances that deem all life as sacred,
laced by the fire of love
our cloaks have turned to wings
flying us through the firmament

~~~

Ululation to the Beloved

his music never stops...
its beat finds me -
wherever i land i'm inside it -
yet, i want to dance closer to his melody,
slip into his color
become one with his tone paintings,
feeling the harmonics we create in our union.
the radio sings me inside him:
oh sweet vivaldi, i stroke him tenderly,
just as the chords of your adagio violin
trickle tears down my cheek-
ever so slowly, like the chords gently caress
and the tears delicately fall ...
impassioned mahler,
i ululate all over him
a dance of your symphonious horns -
mi amour, je t'aime je t'aime!
so faintly i can hear the song that has always been ...
like an armenian dudek it wails its soul's cry
vibrations reaching out like
dripping honey-dew tendricles
finding their resonance in the echoes of our heart ....

~~~

On Romance

romance is the perception of lover as she looks upon beloved

romance is the way God makes love to itself as you

romance is seeing the beauty in life

romance is the way your inhale floats so lightly upon your exhale and your exhale empties itself so completely for your next inhale

romance is the way the tree soaks up the water from the earth and extends its branches towards the sun

romance is the will as it inspires your next breath, your life as it spawns your next heartbeat

romance is the way you say mmmmmmm when you let the sun kiss your skin

romance is letting God as life make love to you regarding and regardless of what it looks like

romance is feeling his touch in his absence as strongly as you do in his presence

romance is a complete surrender to nothing beyond this moment

romance is the way the leaves stand at attention smiling with or without the sun

romance is kissing your teardrops as they fall from your eyes

romance is the play of the wind in your hair, the rain on your roof, the smoke as it lingers and lilts in the air

romance is your longing for a lover, skin to skin, heart to heart

romance is what you do to your thoughts creating them into realities

romance is knowing that we all breathe the same air...that you are breathing his air, that you are breathing his air...

romance is Rodin, Rumi, Michaelangelo, Shakespeare, Cezzane

romance is your delight with cooing, gurgly baby sounds, a child's song and laughter, the way you hold your breath waiting for Chopin's next note

romance is the way you make love to your story, adding to it, embellishing it, creating it just so, that you may swallow it with greater glee, or regurgitate and reject it with ever more passionate drama

romance is embracing the story that you believe you need to survive until you see that you don't need it as it dissolves along with who you thought you were; it is the kiss of disillusionment on the breast of freedom; it is having no idea

romance is the starlight dancing on your brow and the moon's mysteries making love to your imagination

romance is a bird in flight

romance is seeing earth as god's amazing artwork

romance is the way thoughts devour the silence and silence devours thoughts

romance is the way we forget, making remembering all the more meaningful

romance is the way lovers tease each other, holding back, holding back until they explode with desire

romance is the way we as life tease ourselves, holding back, holding back until we explode, implode, dissolve, rebirth, realize, die ... in cycles of infinite variation

romance is the way you tease yourself into believing that something is limited and not that you are limiting

romance is the way your feet caress the ground you walk upon

romance is the way we share our thoughts with each other not even realizing whether others want to or can hear them

romance is our desire to connect, convince, to touch, to trigger, to get reaction

romance is a mother's wailing for her war torn children

romance is the desire to protect at any cost

romance is the play of knowledge hiding behind ignorance

romance is the play of ignorance hiding behind knowledge

romance is the way these boxes connect us to the world

romance is the collective mind as it seduces the individual

romance is the individual as it fights for its autonomy

romance is the sky as it touches the earth

romance is the scent of a rose as it wafts through your nose

romance is the way a shield forms around a broken heart

romance is the way the heart that loves heals its wounds

romance is the way the earth soaks up the rain and feeds it back to the clouds

romance is the way the wave slinks up to the shore and retreats back into ravenous ocean

romance is yipping dog enthusiastically wagging tail, your squirmy laughter as it's licking your face

romance is the fire that burns within you as you create your dreams,
long for them,
wait for them,
reject them

romance is giving it all up and letting God dance you

romance is your saying romance is dead and believing it

romance is the eye of the beloved as it peers through our one heart

romance is God celebrating itself as life

~~~

Living Eternity in Time

God's Echo

He said, "I feel like I am God's echo"
and I replied:

"God's echo is silence as it sings its song throughout the universe
God's echo is your voice as it resonates throughout my body
God's echo is our finites playing their infinities
God's echo is its infinities playing through our finites
God's echo is your laughter tickling my own
God's echo is passionate cries for justice
God's echo is anger, fear and ignorance
God's echo is your acceptance of his many faces
God's echo is intolerance, bigotry and hypocrisy
God's echo is your yearning, your desire, your will
God's echo is your compassion and love
God's echo is creativity as it dances music on the stage of life
God's echo is creating limitation out of freedom
God's echo is creating freedom out of limitation
God's echo is your soul as it calls to my own
God's echo is the tear on your cheek
God's echo is my heart as it calls to yours
God's echo is seeing unity through division
God's echo is creating division out of unity
God's echo is fire as it sweeps across the brush
God's echo is water as it turns to ice and back again to water
God's echo is the poetry that pours out of you
God's echo is forgetting itself
God's echo is remembering itself
God's echo is when i hear you say i love you
God's echo is the hills, the lakes and the valleys
God's echo is the cry of lovers in the climax of their passions
God's echo is when the earth quakes
God's echo is the ocean, trees and flowers
God's echo is the clouds painting their mastery in the sky
God's echo is my heart breaking at the beauty
God's echo is beloved to the lover
God's echo is the rain nurturing the earth
God's echo is a baby crying
God's echo is the sun that shines down on us
God's echo is all living creatures
God's echo is your brilliant mind at service to what is beyond it
God's echo is playing for no reason
God's echo is finding all kinds of reasons (for no reason)
God's echo is time as it measures space and space as it measures time
God's echo is eternity where time has no meaning
God's echo is looking into your eyes and seeing mine seeing yours seeing mine seeing yours seeing mine as we plunge into our souls, dissolve and then ask what's for dinner
God's echo is the mystery that awaits us every moment

Indeed you are God's echo."

~~~

On Dance

Dance is spirit tasting itself in form, from stillness to movement, chaos to harmony, cacophony to symphony, in all of its infinite diversity. Dance is what we call it when we see the movement and rhythm that is always already there. Dance is what we do when we let our bodies breathe our being into becoming and our becoming into being. Dance is the soul's love and laughter as it breathes into time. Dance is a heart explosion making love to the air. Dance is form and formlessness endlessly getting it on. Dance is the merging of sound and movement, where each feel like they are causing each other. Dance is God's living in time, as us, through us. Dance is a celebration of and total immersion into process. Dance is the manifestation of the fluidity of spirit in form. In that sense, dance is the resolution of paradox in form. Dance is a noun that is a verb that is life. Dance is our heart fire as it expresses itself through the body. Dance is a celebration in form of Now.

~~~

What is Grace?

Grace is one of the most ignored and misunderstood of all of the Divine's attributes or expressions. The Grace is always with us no matter what the appearances are. She (I'll femininize Grace- although I can easily call her "it") works through the appearances and as the appearances as well. When we recognize Her is when She appears as flow and what seems to be an easier and more harmonious expression of circumstances. When we do not recognize Her She expresses Herself with less harmonious appearances.

She is always there as the breath of God inhaling us deeper into ItSelf.
When we resist is when we do not recognize Her. The resistance creates our blocking Her flow and that is why Her apearances become more jagged.

The Grace is God inhaling us more into ItSelf and exhaling us deeper into life.
From a less dualistic perspective the Grace is God inhaling ItSelf as us, deeper into the One and exhaling Itself deeper into manifestation.
Grace is the breath of God. The breath of One as it flows into the many and then back into the One.

~~~

Faith

Faith is a secret the Divine tells itself of itself to remember while it believes itself to have forgotten.

Faith is the Divine as you/us remembering itself.

~~~

Devotion is the love-fire of God for itSelf; the spontaneous fire of the heart for itSelf; the natural movement of Truth as it moves towards its own recognition. Life is devotion's love child.

~~~

Living the Sacred Moment

The sacred moment recognizes itself through the experience of Divine beingness within the now, knowing itself and all around it as Divine.

The sacred moment is where the eternal being lives and sees all else as illusion, God's gateway to eternality.

The sacred moment is where the omniscient live and when living elsewhere know only what they have been taught.

The sacred moment is where Truth is holographic including the understanding of perfection in all points of view. Outside of the sacred moment one point of view would render the rest false.

The sacred moment loves for the joy and becoming of loving; a constant flowering of broadening heart to embrace lighter and deeper its healing touch of understanding and freedom on its ever-expanding world.

The sacred moment lives in beauty where only harmony and perfection are possible, because One lives in All, so all is beauty and perfection, (except to the perception of those living outside of the sacred moment).

The sacred moment lives outside of time and therefore it cannot judge, for it has no past or future to compare itself to.

The sacred moment knows only bliss, as it becomes that which it is perceiving and perceives All whose limitlessness is ecstasy.

5/93

~~~

Ascent and Descent

Ascent and Descent are given their meaning by where we stand in identification and in relationship to them. There is descent if there is a true ascent and ascent if there is a true descent. These are relative phenomenal terms... in the light of immanence we are at once involving deeper into conditions and evolving out of them. We cannot transcend without fully embracing where we are. As we reach into matter and its conditions or out of them we are ascending. As we reach into or out of matter and its conditions, we are descending. Ascending into spirit is a full relaxation of the body/mind (which necessitates descension) - descending into matter is a full relaxation of the body/mind. Antecedent to relaxation is awareness... especially in the light of how habituated we are otherwise. So from one perspective of our tensions obscuring that awareness we are ascending as we relax ... from another we are descending depending in what we identify with in relationship to what we are seeing.

~~~

Being and Becoming

"Becoming" is the nature of manifest existence and consciousness moving towards its Self awareness and experience in form. I do not see "being" as the end of "becoming." I see becoming as the nature of chit and the mode of experiencing sat and ananda with sat, chit and ananda all being inherent in each other.*

*sat: being
chit: consciousness
ananda: love, delight, bliss

~~~

On Seeking

Seeking is an innate aspect of Consciousness as a force of play in this relative, material, space-time universe. Consciousness, the Divine, God, seeks to know and experience ItSelf in Its infinite diversity as and through us. Where it becomes a paradoxical bind in the experience of the seeker, is when what is seeking perceives itself to be not of the same substance in its essential nature as that which it is seeking. It is then when the seeking separates oneself further in experience and identity from that which one aspires towards.

It is like trying to deny the inherent nature of the Divine within manifestation to deny the essence that seeks for or moves towards more of itSelf. When speaking about "letting go," "stopping," "the end of the search," and the always already unconditioned self without acknowledging this, we set up a paradoxical bind that creates a tension and conflict when "doing" or the desire to perfect or achieve happens even if it arises out of this essence that seeks for more of ItSelf.

Essence moves towards its self-realization in manifestation. In manifestation this "seeking" for more of itself or moving towards its self-recognition and realization is innate. There is nothing but That so all movement can only come from and go towards That. At the same time I sense that the Divine moves towards itSelf as Self-knowing awareness in manifestation. We have called it the Divine Will in Action. It can be seen as the nature force: prakriti or the soul force: purusha. Whether we move in fear, ignorance or love and awareness this Will is illuminating the Divine to the Divine or what stands between the Divine and its own self-illuminating awareness; what does not know itself yet as That.

~~~

Trying to see Spirit with the mind is like trying to see the yard with naked eyes through a slatted fence. The trying, the mind and the slatted fence are spirit too.

~~~

The force that seeks is That which re members;

Re members that eternal touch

We are That Force re membering

New todays

Eternal yestermoments

And flowering tomorrows

As heart quickens

In anticipation

Love drops trickle

From earth's heaven

Softly

On

Moving

Mountains

With a whisper

With a song

With a symphony

Melody singing us as

One

Singing we

Taste

The nectar

On

Sweet lips

Of the beloved

We are

Trickling

Love drops

And what they trickle upon

We are nectar

On sweet lips

We are sweet lips

We are taste

We are beloved

Love, lover and beloved

One

In a mad passion

Transclusion

Ecstatic union

Awaits

The awakening

Kiss

Of

Now

~~~

The Inherency of Bliss

Bliss is prior to and "achieved" in the sense of it being realized or awakened to since being forgotten. It is "achieved" when looking through the lens of time and "always already" when looking through the lens of the timeless eternal.

Bliss is a ground inherency of Being, of Consciousness. It is the essence of Brahman. It is Self-delight. It is the infinite, illimitable, absolute original being that is us.
Pain, suffering and forgetting are inherent potentialities or probabilities of Being and at an essential level, the play of Bliss.

~~~

Love

Divine Love or Love which in its true sense and essence is Divine Love is the impulse, the spark and the glue that holds everything together; it is the heart of creation, the face behind the Shakti, the Maya and God itSelf. It is the beginning of beginnings and the end of endings. In manifestation, nothing can be without it. It never left during the original separation experience, it only forgot itSelf. And that forgetting was willed by the heart within the Supreme and the Supramental Truth. Indeed, the One's creation of the many to experience itSelf is a love affair. The reality of it was and will always be there, because at its essence all is That. The bridge to it is merely the Call, the prayer and then the remembering to that which is already there. What remembers, calls. The answers herald the questions. The true prayers are the Divine speaking to ItSelf. What yearns, yearns for ItSelf. What longs, longs for ItSelf. Otherwise how would it know or have any sense of what it was missing? We are in the process of re membering, of in our awareness, coming back together with and as Source, of bridging the inconscient and the superconscient. This remembering fully in the body and in matter, and what moves from that awareness, is what I sense is what beloved Sri Aurobindo calls the supramental manifestation.

~~~

Embracing the Shadow

Embracing means to me being present with what arises... fully feeling and being with it. Embracing shadow means shining the light on shadow so it no longer lurks in the shadow but in the light so that you can see it. Shadow is that which I have not learned to accept, understand or forgive within my self. In that I view the world as not separate from me, any judgement I have about the world is my shadow.

I embrace the world's shadow as my own. Yes, I embrace the serial killer by knowing him as another face of me... and of God. I embrace that which tortures not by saying yes to the behaviour but by saying yes to the no within me that thinks that it is or they are separate from God and myself.

When I embrace something I am able to dance with it more affectively. Even in my embrace of not knowing, I am able to relax more. Through my being more present with it, I am able to understand it (and my relationship to it) more and know better how I want to proceed. I am in surrender to the Divinity which will eat me up through the tiger, or to the Divinity of my capability to out wit any given adverse-to-our health and well-being situation. This may mean dancing with it myriad ways including saying no to it, taking cover from it, fighting it, or transmuting it. Self-Knowing Love has many expressions.

~~~

No one's Dream

shadow thoughts waft through
echoing the fears of all time
sculpting self measured by
should have's and have nots
haunting through me -
birthing despondency,
ennui,
no oomph impotency,
limping as living death
holding onto frayed thread
of meaning every moment like
the second to last breath
of life

looking back and
seeing nothing,
looking forward and
seeing nothing,
while here layers and layers
of me lithify,
panic vortex gulps me up
creating stories
that pretend my insufficient sufficiency,
my form fossilizing
as walking dead,
dreaming its dream
of life unaccomplished

exhausted by the hero's journey
all of the effort
a mockery
with nothing to show for it

oh senseless
valiant doing good
time's up
pushing mind's constructs
over the edge

still i hold on
to the dream of dreams
believing letting go
will render life meaningless

but hidden so deep within
dark dank crevices
unknown even to me
is fear not of lost meaning
but of this me which is a fiction -
as despondency's gloom
promises forever

onward without my puissant endeavors
Her mighty hand shapes mountains and valleys,
galaxies sprinkle stardust on our heavens

and i hold on

and i hold on

till one day by grace
the fiction of me
is mirrored
dissolving into
emptiness where no point
of me can be found
a taste of freedom
feared might be forgotten

and i hold on

and i hold on

encyclopedia awaits with
open arms
her breath a stench of
world's knowledge ossified
her drool sucks up beliefs
of dreams to be attained
a new me found her point
of meaning again

i am this moment
waiting to be remembered
split in two
by this more subtle attachment
puck's dream both seduction
and my nightmare
the shadow that walks beside me

and on and on this cycle repeats
leaving a cemetery of dead beliefs,
but each eulogy resurrects new meaning
my grasping for life giving it substance

how can i give it up
my soul, my dream,
the last vestiges of me
and time's most meaningful significance?
as i grasp for freedom
lost in yesterday's memory
i live today forgotten
never here
only there

puck's dream swallows me
whole into dark night
with nothing left to stand on,
no there defining here,
no that defining this,
i give up i give up
my despair a hearkening:
there is no one, nothing, nowhere
but this and no me to be found

no one left to fear the unknown,
no where to go that is not here,
no thing to defend against the now,
mystery: life's sovereign soil

all no's deliquesce to yes
embracing this and this and this,
truth's sword cuts two in one,
heart luminesces as sun

~~~

A Hero's Journey

you crawl inside the ephemeral doubt;
the n-a-g that weighs our heart heavy,
love worms its way through
where ominous signs saying "keep out"
usually hold their reign,
branding in our souls their bevy.

you fold wings unforgotten
entering the bowels of hell.
their tips titillate time's promise,
spawn shrieks without sound,
sound without morrow,
tomorrows without today
no path, no trail

silent terror clinches
clutch
the
only
thing
solid
left
to
hold
onto

nothing
no
thing
left
hhhhh
void

aaaaaiiirr
sssucked out

I'll choke!

give me my holding on
to hold onto.

wings cast a shadow
on faces reflecting time's misery.
tears stream rivers of woe
burying lovers of life
in ocean of memory.

we are sod.
dry-shod
tip-toeing
slip-shod
on earth's blanket,
our body.

this awareness marks time
eternal
though not eternal like timeless now,
eternal
like endless empty tomorrows
dripping into eaves trough.

and in there you roll and rock
weaving time into eternity.
you catch my breath,
my timeless flow
as i feel you enter me.

by the hand you take me
down lachrymose depths
breathing into life's liturgy.
as i breathe eternity into your time
you breathe into my eternity.

by the Grace and embrace
a Silence envelopes.
wing tips touch stars
and flap to flight.
their dance with the sun
illuminating shadow,
blinking on and off,
fanning delight.

and this flight
we take into the day and night
where light casts every color
of the rainbow in its shadow
and within shadow we see light.
our wings wrap around God's
varied faces
where heaven and earth unite as One
in surrender to Her embraces.

~~~

Acceptance and Love

I would say that I love all, but (in this context) love does not mean to me approval or liking a lot. It is a state of being which is not conditional upon the appearances or circumstances in my life. I could love my neighbor but not want to have dinner with her. I love her as another face of the Divine and yet may never be drawn to speak to her. I may love all at the Forums I participate on and yet only be drawn to respond to a few names. I may not accept what some of those individuals say and have to honor in my response my truth which may accept who they are innately but disagree with what they are saying.

I may see a Hitler as having acted in an evil way but I see him at the same time as another face of God. I may fight the acts by loving the man. And love too has many faces. But for the part of me that is Hitler to heal, love must be brought to it. If we kill him there is no healing. If we accept what he is doing he continues to kill. So I would fight the acts but love the man. My fighting the acts is loving the man, in fact. My seeing his Divinity and reflecting that back to him enables him to see it.

The way I act in the world is coming out of the awareness and experience that all is love/God but so is my idiosyncratic truth. I accept all from the standpoint of knowing that all is God. But I do not accept in moments the way that expresses itSelf in manifestation. Generally if it is not Self-Knowing and coming from a separative consciousness, I take exception, if called. I take exception to the act and accept totally the immanence at its core. At the same time I have no attachments to the outcome of my taking exception. I accept the outcome, inwardly as being the Divine will. At the same time I may be called to fight the outcome. So my emotional body is shanti, but I may be called to act forcefully. If my emotional body is affected then I have healing to do. Then it becomes about me and my emotional reactions. Those reactions show me where my work is within myself.

My love is not conditional upon my world's behavior or understanding. But their behavior and understandings may move me to bring my love signature to them.

~~~

Self-doubt is a destructive use of memory.

~~~

One day, I looked up at the sky
And I knew I was dead.
It was just the sky.
Then I wondered.
Was seeing that beauty before just my imagination?
Was that my need for meaning
Inventing something for its own sense of survival?
And the days went on and on.. and on.

Second-guessing the mystic,
Killed her
The Silence filled with doubt

Eternities of Wonder filled with eternities of nothingness

One day, I looked up at the sky and

Rodrigo! Concerto de Aranjuez all over me.

Paco Pena,
Planta! Planta! Planta!
Ayiiiiiiii!
Fill me with your duende!

I am panther
Slithering
Slinking slow
Prancing prowl
Rrrrramada
Planta! Planta! Planta!

Sky! Envelope me in your blue
Let me swallow your stars!

~~~

On Paradox

The appearance of paradox is substantiated by those who are not able to reconcile opposites, who see dualistically supported by their mental identification with the future and past of time. The timeless embraces and transcends relativity. There are no contradictions when there is no future or past to compare anything to.
All resides in the now; all resides in the one.

Ken Wilber said something like paradox only appears like paradox to a dualistic mind. Duality measures space with time and time with space. Remove time from the "equation" and there is nothing to measure with.

~~~

On Humor

Humor can be a divine perspective; seeing its lila from the delight beyond the lila. It is like witnessing with an eye for the ridiculous. I find that humor can be healing and a direct line to witnessing and taking responsibility for behavior that would otherwise feel impossible for an egoic, self-judging mindset to recognize or own up to. It grasps the whole of the predicament juxtaposed with a perspective beyond it without being caught up in it.

~~~

On Dreams

Dreams are the creative will in seed form;
they can be manifestation's promise and fruit and they can be manifestion's veils.
Dreams are God's imagination as and through us and life.
Dreams are God's breathing eternity into time and time into eternity.
Dreams are what we are too afraid to let ourselves have, and what we are too afraid to let ourselves wake up from.
Dreams are the fear that keeps us from waking up.
Dreams are the mind weaving reality, and the conditions of reality weaving the mind.
Dreams are essence finding its way through form and idea.
Dreams are the subconscious's way of whispering in code to itself.
Dreaming is a way for a soul to contact, commune and experience different realms of being.
Dreams are a canvas that God paints its impressionism on.
Dreams are our future; our past remembered; our present realized.
Dreams are where the imagination lives and are the doorway to creativity.
Dreams are love's fire realizing itself through life's infinitude.

~~~

Dreams and Desire

Question: "Would you agree that dreams are, to a large extent, about Desire--unfulfilled cravings and incomplete understanding of the nature of things."

Dreams could be about that. In this piece on dreams, I alluded to a positive view of dreams and a negative or pejorative view.... as there is of desire. There is waking from the dream of our illusions or from the samsara of tanha; from attachment and desire. And there is entering the dream of our visions, desire and passion; dreams born from the truth of our soul, from Self moving towards Self experience, from That spawning That made manifest, from essence breathing itself in form, from our innate joy laughing its eternity into manifestation, from the truth of our being, satchidananda, echoing its memory through vision and seeding mystery, discovery, invention, creativity and realization.

If we are to measure "understanding" against some standard in context of the infinite possibilities of Self-realization, than understanding will always be measured as "incomplete".... and through that measurement we will twist and turn ourselves as we chase our tails judging and pathologizing where we are as we attempt to spiritually bypass what is innate to being. As long as Self is realizing itself here in form and through multiplicity there will be a place for dreams. There will be those dreams that obscure, veil and weave realities that apparently disempower the dreamer and forget Self and there will be those dreams that reveal Self in all of its infinitude. Nevertheless, all of it is Self's playground for experience and realization. We are not only here realizing the All or the Nothing, but one of most challenging and profound of journeys, (often given short shrift by those deeming themselves "spiritual"), we are realizing our humanness. The dream is not other than the breath of fire of Self.

I think much of the knot tying up liberation has to do with the way we fix ourselves in identity more than desire, per se. Who is the dreamer? According to Swami Prajnanapad (who I do not know of except for the following that I read somewhere and I feel draws the perfect distinction here): To be awakened does not mean that one is "without desire" but "free to desire."

~~~

rosebud point pricks open the skypenetrating the sun

~~~

rosebud prong pricks open the skytip and sun coalesce

~~~

The Original Separation Experience

Through individuation and our original separation experience when the One became the many and sought to experience itSelf in infinite diversity, it set up the probability of forgetting and the medium of time and relativity creating a condition where it could measure and compare and forget that which seeks is That. This set up the possibility of a refinement and revealment of ItSelf in ItSelf. "I the Self reveal Self by Self in Self." Without the implicit/explicit multiplicity in Unity, Unity would be a non-existent empty void and more finite as it wouldn't contain the unlimited field of possibilities within it. What seeks is Itself for ItSelf. The memory of this original separation experience, and its fragmentation is at our core and seeks for what it senses it is not, in the desire for Its completion. We got caught up in the seeking and the forgetting, investing more and more in the beliefs of our limitations; the beliefs that we are not That which we seek. And these beliefs have been reinforced for millennia. And the more we have sought, the more noble have our efforts been considered. And the more our efforts have been considered noble, the more we have invested in and defined ourselves by them. And the more we have defined ourselves by them, the more we have invested in not attaining their end. How could it be so easy as just letting go? That is one reason why realization is so rare.

~~~

(Rasa is a Sanskrit word meaning sap or essence of a thing and its taste.)

Tasting the Rasa is creating the Rasa. As we see it, we call it forward into manifestation.

~~~

Unity and Multiplicity

We are exactly the same in that we are totally unique!
Through Unity we celebrate our diversity.
Differentiation need not go into dissociation.
Seeing distinctions can open the gateway of understanding to more intricate and refined connections within the lanscape of the whole.

Through BEING, as ONE, we can see the truth of the infinite plurality of SELF.
Multiplicity is the One's varied Play of ItSelf in manifestation.
The Divine created the two out of the One in order to experience itSelf in Its infinite diversity.
Without this Knowledge of our inherent Oneness and from the exclusive viewpoint of our separative ego sense, we identify with our limited and divided form. Each two of the One becomes a fraction of ItSelf.
Without the implicit/explicit multiplicity in Unity, Unity would be a non-existent empty void and more finite as it wouldn't contain the unlimited field of possibilities within it.

I embrace the I AM in the infinite forms of YOU.

That there is a you and a me enables me to look at myself and say "hi."

I can laugh, argue, fight, love, caress, cry, dance and sing with myself!!

Sri Aurobindo said in his Upanishads, "'I the Self reveal Self by Self in Self' - liberated by this knowledge one enjoys the play."

~~~

Maps

you see a map?
the traces of our footprints
traveled along mysteries' path;
a map to mystery
where what is known
is trust in now,
in our breath,
letting ourselves as kaleidescope
be breathed into life;
letting ourselves as eternity
be breathed into time.
you see a map?
the future calling us
to where we have yet to travel
and yet have been all along...
we see then that too,
we have been letting
ourselves as time
breathe us into eternity.
you see a map?
the past calling us
to retrace our steps
again and again
with a new light,
a new awareness,
where past meets future
giving birth to now,
where now gives birth
to past and future;
to eternity
and the awareness of what
has always already been.

the map as a guide for some future as yet realized:
complicates simplicities
when written in time.

these words when viewed through time:
complex,
when viewed through eternity:
simple.
but where nonrelative awareness
breathes into the relative
form embodies the formless and
time and materiality
take on a new substance.

~

the map is my heart as it becomes ours,
the map is our heart as it becomes mine.
the map is love reaching for itself through
myriad appearances.
the map is your soul's song quickening my breath,
the map is my soul's song expanding my heart.
the map is your presence beckoning me towards you,
the map is your absence moving me away.
the map is form communing with formeless
the map is black and white inspiring us towards gray.
the map is gray inspiring us towards black and white.
the map is my heart beat as it entrains with others'
the maps are our heart beats as they find their own rhythms
the map is your "footprints showing me where beauty has passed."
the map is unity embracing diversity.
the map is our joy leading us to where we are...

~~~

When you're in love, all of life is guru.

~~~

On Darshan (Revealing the Divine)

It is not merely the teacher/guru who gives darshan but those who receive it who give it by seeing the divinity within or as you.

Teachers watch out! Who you speak to is who will answer. If you see and speak to the Divine that is who will answer.

You must receive the darshan to create the experience of it having been given because in truth all of life is constantly giving us darshan. Rare is it unveiled by the giver who is Self-aware and offering That to who is in their awareness not other than That and rare is it unveiled by those seeing the divinity in life beyond the appearances that do not have "guru" or "avatar" stamped on their head.

Receive life's darshan and you will be giving life darshan.
This is where you move mountains.

~~~

The Inner Teacher

The "inner teacher" is always the one guiding... through its journeys including in surrender to apparently outer gurus and giving up its power, it can dissolve the distinctions of division in appearance of inner and outer.

Some feel "safer" doing what a madman tells them than trusting themselves and their "inner" guidance that originates from the unknown. I have always encouraged those to honor their Inner Guru first, because I see that as aligning consciously with the way it is anyway. I do see that outer gurus not caught up in the survival of devotees' egos can be helpful in illuminating the difference between the ego and Self - or disillusioning what can be disillusioned in a more accelerated way than might be had without them. But it is the Inner Guru that lead them to this outer teacher. And it is only That which can recognize itself. The outer guru can only be a reflection of what is the essential suchness of all receiving his/her/its transmission. And if the truth of One is illuminated, there is no difference between them or who called who to whom. So conceptually, you can look at it from any direction and see the truth in it. If there is a sense of self in identification with Self and that is associated with the outer guru and the self of the seeker is seen as small or separate than it will seem as though the outer guru awakened the inner guru. If there is a sense of self where Self is associated with the Inner Guru than all outside becomes a reflection of That. But in apperception or nonidentification the totality through and beyond all conditions moved as it did with no inner or outer just Consciousness in its dance of coming to know itself.

~~~

Ramana Maharhshi said that there is no difference between God, Guru and Self. In this awareness that there is no difference between you and me, there is no greater joy than to touch your feet. There is nothing self-demeaning about it. It is glory.

~~~

A mind of light is a mind that has fallen to its knees before the Heart and is open to the Silence that breathes through it.

~~~

The hour of God is now as we step into the timeless eternal and know ourselves as what we have aspired towards.

~~~

When love is something to be measured by mind and values we can tell ourselves we do not love when someone or thing does not measure up. When love is experienced as a state of being and all there is, how can we not love, it is who we are!

~~~

Essentially it is no one that those coming to satsang wish to see and have reflected back to themselves. They come to disappear and to see no one. "No one" is laughing.

~~~

My true Beloved stands behind every pair of eyes waiting to be seen.
My true Beloved sees from behind my eyes, the Beloved in others.

~~~

On Forgetting

In the field of eternality what is real cannot be threatened.
In the field of time (manifestation) what is real is created by our thoughts.
Like children, we are playing in our imaginations.
The ecstatic wakes up realizing it was only a dream and remembering lives the dream embracing and therefore bringing a new light to the limitation of thought and the limitlessness of silence, playing in both worlds at once; loving the field of time where she can enjoy infinite diversity and embrace the I Am which is You too and loving the field of eternality where all is one, one is all, everything is nothing and nothing is everything.

I embrace the I Am in the infinite forms of You.

Only through our thoughts in this field of manifestation is it possible to forget that all is God, all is Love, all is Beauty and all is Perfection.
Only in this field of time is there such a thing as Love and what does not know itself yet as Love, God and what does not know itself yet as God, Beauty and what does not know itself yet as Beauty and Perfection and what does not know itself yet as Perfection.

Truth hidden within reflecting shadows and light calling to reveal itself, creating light in the darkest corners.

Forgetting is a magical trick God gave us to open up limitless potentialities within the field of manifestation so that our embrace be fuller when we remember so that light expands into more of itself.
It is the trick that potentiates Love, a constant flowering of broadening heart to embrace wider and deeper its ever-expanding world (it potentiates love, the nature of which is expansion).
Most of our societies are built upon the miracle of forgetting - few upon remembering.
Inevitably all remember, but those that have forgotten remember through time and relativity once they have let go of time and relativity.

There is the seed of the all-knowing within the ignorant because only the all-knowing could have birthed the ignorant.
There is the seed of the all-blissful within the tortured because only the all-blissful could have birthed the tortured.
Birthed to potentiate expansion.
Birthed to enjoy the play.

We have all gone mad forgetting that we are pretending.
The ones who are locked up remembered, but forgot how to play the game that will keep them safe from the forgetting pretenders.

Forgetting is the most amazing drug there is.

6/23/96

2006-03-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

see how this feels: if you kiss the worst darkness you have made peace with all of it... you have made love to all of it.... you have unveiled the appearance where love stands behind.... you have freed yourself from your judgments. that which within you would be most repelled is also that within you that you are most afraid of. you kiss that, and your fear is gone.... you make love to it and you heal it... you embrace that part of yourself that you see as the worst darkness. you make love to your polar opposite and you resolve the paradox of light and dark in your union. 4-18-01