Chuck Surface - Something wonderful

I can’t remember when it all began, so long ago,
The sudden awareness of existing in space and time,
The earliest arisings of sensation and perception.
Alas, my first memories are years after that big bang.

I can’t remember when awareness of myself arose,
In that Field of Perception without center or periphery,
The felt sense of “I”, separate, isolated, alone,
When the reed was cut from soil and water.

I can’t remember when language was learned,
And thereafter wrapped all of experience,
Cloaking nameless, formless Wonder,
In words, concepts, and mental representations.

I can’t remember when it first arose…
The relentless concern over stature, self-esteem,
Am I attractive, desirable, respected, admired,
And most viciously cruel; am I worthy of love.

I don’t remember when the Suffering of life,
Born of both Human cruelty and Nature’s wrath,
Breached the walls of my unsuspecting heart,
And engendered an ever-present, ambient sorrow.

Ever so slowly I wandered into the Desert of Estrangement,
Unaware of the gradual obscuration and contraction,
Falling ever more deeply asleep, ever more deeply lost,
In a dream of myself, myself, myself, and the world.

Hell.

But I do remember, when the pain became too great,
Fleeing ever so deeply within, in search of that Essential Me,
Existent before all that had accrued, after the fact,
Of qualities and attributes defining Peripheral me.

I remember when, Journeying in search of my ending,
I found The Beginningless Beginning of myself and all that Is,
And Vanishing there as myself, along with all that is,
Remained Alive... as the Essence of Life Itself.

I remember the Ecstasy of that Nonexistent Existence,
For which there are no analogs in manifest experience,
An Ecstasy experienced in the Vanishing of the experiencer,
The Absolute Fulfillment of the Heart’s Desire.

Heaven.

And I remember that when I and the world reappeared,
The formless I Am that I am, before “I” and the world ever were,
Returned with me to manifest Existence in space and time,
A Divine stowaway in the Heart of Being.

And I remember how The Beloved resided, thereafter,
As a Wellspring of Dissolution and Bliss in The Heart,
Her Tavern, Her Garden, The Soul’s Light Shining,
Nonexistent Existence, here… in the midst of existence.

Heaven on earth.

I remember how the Sorrows of manifest existence continued,
Even as the Soul’s Sorrowless Light Illumined Experience,
And how those Sorrows and the Soul's Ecstasy, co-existing,
Became… something else.

And I remember how the individuated self continued,
Even as the Soul’s Selfless Light Illumined Experience,
And how individuated self and Selfless Soul, co-existing,
Became… something else.

Something… Wonderful.

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