Bob O’Hearn - The Work

For earnest pilgrims on the path,
truth can be a most consuming flame
when there are illusions left to burn.

When it gets too hot we may complain,
though it’s only light, doing its job,
until the lesson’s learned.

Stick by stick, the fuel of the past
is fed to a pyre in the fire-circle of life
to enjoy the fate of all flammable things —
all stories of self and other, you and me –
the dry kindling wood made of memory.

Ah, everyone wants to be happy.

Everyone has their own work to do,
regardless of any hope or fear,
sad regret, or doubt.

Love, and the way it’s resisted:
what everyone’s work
is mostly about.

https://snowypathtonowhere.wordpress.com/ 
 

Rupert Spira - Experience Shines

~ ~ ~
In the early stages of our investigation, objective experience seems to veil, obscure, our essential Being. And for this reason, there is a turning away from objective experience. That’s the inward-facing path. “Life returns to Thee in all the pauses of her breath.” But later on, it becomes clear that objective experience shines with our Being, shines with the light of pure Knowing. Objective experience is no longer a veiling power but a revealing power.

These are the two meanings of the word ‘Maya’ in the Vedantic tradition. ‘Maya’ is usually translated as ‘illusion’. This is the first meaning; the power of objective experience to veil or obscure our essential Self from ItSelf.

But the word ‘Maya’ also has another meaning (less often explained in the traditional literature) and that is the revealing power of Maya, the creativity of Maya, where objective experience is no longer seen to obscure our Being but shines with it, celebrates it, announces it.

To begin with, the movie seems to veil the screen. Later, it is seen to shine with the screen. And in between these two points of view, it may be necessary to turn the movie off in order to see clearly the screen. We are always seeing the screen. This is, by the way, a conventional screen; we are sitting on the sofa. We are always seeing the screen, but we are not seeing it clearly. It is colored by the movie and therefore, we think it is a landscape. So, if we do not see the screen clearly, if we think the two-dimensional screen is a three-dimensional landscape, we may have to turn off the movie. This turning off the movie is the turning away from objective experience. It is the Vedantic path; the inward facing path. It doesn’t really require the turning off of experience, but rather the turning away from experience in order to see clearly what I Am.

But then we turn the movie back on again. And having seen clearly the nature of the screen, the obscuring power of the movie has been removed. The movie no longer veils the screen; it shines with it. It celebrates it.

So, once we have turned away from experience in order to know clearly who I Am…, even in the midst of experience, everyone is experiencing themselves…, most people do not experience themselves clearly and therefore, this turning off of the movie, this turning away from experience is necessary, in almost all cases, in order to see clearly what I Am.

As a result of this necessity to turn away from objective experience, as a result of the recognition that objective experience veils our Being, in many of the traditional approaches (both in the Eastern cultures and in Western culture) objective experience has been considered with various degrees of distain, various degrees of rejection. But in this approach, this turning away from experience is only half the journey; only the first half of the journey. It is necessary to return to experience, to redeem experience from its veiling hour…, to see and to feel that:

Experience shines with the Reality of our Being.
It shines with the light of pure Knowing.
It announces and celebrates the Presence of Consciousness.

Once it becomes clear that all experience is a coloring of our own Being (that experience or mind is the activity of Consciousness) then experience no longer poses a threat. It is no longer something we have to defend ourselves from. We may continue to seek refuge on a daily basis in the privacy and silence of our own Being, but we do not feel that we leave that refuge when we go out into the world of experience. We take ourselves with us wherever we go. We are safe; not only in the sanctuary of the Heart but we are safe in the midst of all experience.

That doesn’t mean to say that we no longer experience grief and sorrow. It simply means that we no longer defend ourselves against such experiences. We are totally open to them, and as a result, they lose their sting. We find it hard, for instance, to distinguish between grief and love. Anyone that has lost a close companion knows that.
~ ~ ~
.
Excerpt from “Meditation: 'I' Is the Source of Our Longing”

Times 37:50 to 50:28

(Thanks to  Amaya Aum   for the transcription) 

Jeff Foster - Breath

Pay attention to your present breath.

The mind says,
‘Oh, it’s just another breath…’

But the heart knows,
it’s your first ever breath.
The Only breath.
The sacred breath of Life Itself.

You are not breathing.
You are being breathed, friend.

You are being taken care of
in ways you’ll never understand.

http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/

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Dorothy Hunt - Dissolving

http://www.dorothyhunt.org/

 

Aisha Salem - Freedom

While on the Way,
enlightenment is a matter of Life and Death,
a Soul-wrenching defiance of want and will,
scraping its bloody knuckles against the raw and unmoving rock of naked Truth.

No chance to build a bridge or cut a deal,
with the sharp-eyed mistress of Reality,
always and ever demanding you to proceed and complete,
never land, never rest, never sleep,
just further and further until awake, alive and undone.

Worn to the bone and cut by the sword,
burned by the fire and dead to dreams and hopes,
one day nothing more happens and peace occurs,
by the end of the distorting wish for the false to be real.
of seeing the true as true.

No longer buried again and again,
by the fear of dying or the temptation to exist,
by concepts of friends, family, country or society, future, past or even now,
but enthralled in the blessed mist of non-knowing, non-needing, non-existing.

Happiness and its kin unhappiness, replacement by Joy,
Love and its kin hatred, replacement by vast openness,
Good and its buddy bad, buried in the sand-dunes of free Life,
no need for silence and no appreciation of noise.

True self of noself emanating as sweet nothing,
the sky be your hat as the ocean be your gut.
Simplicity no longer contested nor requested,
just naturally the result of peace.

No one knows in advance the resiliance of your stubborness,
or temperature of your passion,
only you can forge the Sword in the fire of Truth.

Enlightenment – after all –
is nothing but a crazy game for crazy people,
and yet, it might be the only game worth playing,
for the warrior foolish, passionate and demanding enough,
to be willing to die for nothing.

https://aishasalem.com/ 

 

Rafael Stoneman - Undone

No time for poetry, what could that mean?
Too much work going on, 

too much petty pushes of pride,
too much coming and going, 

in order to survive.

 

But without a poem in your heart.

are you really  alive?



Come again to a standstill,
where there is nothing to be done.



Stay silent here, for at least one long moment,
and let love and nothingness real you in.

Now there is a break from healing,

a rest from dualistic emotions.


a timeout from trying to become.

Sip this silence  slowly,
until you are sober and undone.

Here  at the batgap

Kavi Jezzie Hockaday - This poetry...

this poetry is an elusive trickster
when i want it to be there
it disappears

it does not respond
to command

but instead
seems to live it’s own life
freely unconcerned
with what i want

any sign of wanting
on my part
and it’s off
hiding in the ether
enjoying the unformed realm

so what can i do?
i have no plan
not building a career
or a platform
not trying to be anything
or get anywhere

no

i simply have to allow the waves
to rise and fall
guided as they are
by some unseen hand
some mysterious intelligence

the same intelligence that runs the whole show.

 Poetry of brokenness and beauty

Kavi web site