Friday, May 8, 2020

Lal-Ded - Secret of the self





Thou wert absorbed in Thine Own Self,
hidden from me;
I passed whole days in seeking Thee out
But when I saw Thee in mine own Self

O joy! Then Thou and I
disported ourselves in ecstasy
I traversed the vastness of the void alone,
Leaving behind me reason and sense,
Then came upon the secret of the self;
And, all of a sudden, unexpectedly,
In mud the lotus bloomed for me.

Like a tenuous web Shiva spreads Himself,
Penetrating all frames of all things,
If while alive, you cannot see Him,
How can you see Him after death?
 


 

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Michael Markham - Simply being




I know......It's been a hard journey.
There have been tears and blood on this trail to the edge.
But here you are.......standing at the delta.
In front of you is the vast undefined edgelessness.
Behind you is the dream of we are.
Standing in the outgoing tide you can feel everything
being pulled from under who you thought you were.
When you look down, you can see only the flowing.
When you look up you can see only clouds.....moving.
But if you look to the side.....you may see someone.....laughing.

........you've had the world pulled out from underneath who you thought you were and planted your butt on a park bench just to settle in and get used to the edgelessness.
And that's pretty normal.
But all that time you have been trying to get an idea of what the hell happened..... Life has been pulsating all around you.
Squirrels have started their families and the robins have returned.
Stand up......Look around....Touch the grass........Feel the wind.
It's time to return to the only reality you can ever know.

It's time to embrace the mystery of simply being.





 

John Astin - What is




Perfect Clarity

Stop for a moment and just watch the flow of experience, the flow of whatever is appearing. Notice how it is constantly changing, how the flow of experience looks and feels different from moment to moment.

Now, as you notice this constantly changing flow of experience, appreciate something quite remarkable and that is that all that’s appearing is doing so in perfect clarity. By definition the fact that something has appeared is evidence of this pristine, perfect clarity.

No matter how this moment may be appearing, no matter how it might feel or how we might describe it, it is clearly whatever it is. A moment of happiness. Perfectly clear it is that. A moment of sorrow? Perfectly clear it is that. A moment of clarity? Perfectly clear it is that. A moment of confusion? Perfectly clear it is that!

Everything may be changing, never the same from moment to moment. But the clarity is constant, the perfect, ever-present clarity of what is.





Reality, Drinking Itself

All there is, is experience.

Feel the reality of this, the undeniable fact that you can never, ever find anything outside of experience. Let it sink in, the reality that experience is all there ever is.  Go “inside” of what you think of as yourself and what do you find there? Experience. Go “outside” of what you think of as yourself and you find exactly the same thing. Experience.

Now, within this field of experience, it may feel as if there are two separate things happening—that which is being experienced and the one experiencing it. But in reality, both the apparent subject (self) and object (other), are nothing other than an ever-changing, kaleidoscopic dance of experiencing.

And so when we say that “we” are having an experience of some “thing,” what we’re really saying is that experience is experiencing itself. In every instant, no matter how we might be describing it, all that’s ever happening is that experience is tasting itself, drinking itself, feasting on itself.  Feel this, the way in which experience is constantly exploring itself, ever curious about the countless forms it takes each instant.

Drink in the richness, the luscious sensuality of it all. Enjoy this exquisite dance of life savoring itself in all its many forms.