Rumi ♡ From Self to Self

 

 

 

 

The seeds of His love blossom in every heart.
The sounds of His flute fill every celebration.
Everyone thinks that he sings and dances
But no---
He is the only one singing,
He is the only one dancing.

If a tree could run or fly
it would not suffer from the teeth of a saw
or the blows of an axe.

If the Sun did not run across the sky
the world would not see
the colors of morning.
If water did not rise from the sea
plants would not be quickened
by rivers or rain.

It’s only when a drop leaves the ocean—and returns—
that it can find an oyster
and become a pearl.

But you have no need to go anywhere—
journey within yourself.
Enter a mine of rubies
and bathe in the splendor of your own light.

O great one,

Journey from self to Self
and find the mine of gold.

Leave behind what is sour and bitter—
move toward what is sweet.

Be like the thousand different fruits
that grow from briny soil.

This is the miracle—

Every tree becomes beautiful
when touched by sunlight;

Every soul becomes God
when touched by the Sun of Tabriz.

 

 

 

Tony Parsons - The wonderful mystery

"The idea that presumes the possibility that dualistic practices can lead the apparent seeker to the non¬dualistic perception is similar to the idea that with sufficient effort and determination you can teach a blind man to see.
To quote "Doctrines, processes and progressive paths which seek enlightenment only exacerbate the problem they address by reinforcing the idea that the apparent self can find something it presumes it has lost. It is that very effort, that investment in self¬identity that continuously recreates the illusion of separation from oneness. This is the veil which we believe exists. It is the dream of individuality." (The Open Secret)
Out of all the many awakenings that have been described to me, it is continuously confirmed that one of the first realizations that arises is the seeing that no¬one awakens. And yet we see that the majority of teachings, both traditional and contemporary, are constantly speaking to an apparent separate seeker (subject) and recommending that in order to attain enlightenment (object) they should choose to meditate, self¬enquire, purify, cultivate understanding, still the mind and the ego, surrender, be honest, seek earnestly , give up seeking, do therapy, do nothing, be here now, and so on . . . the ideas are as endless and as complicated as the mind from where they are generated.
These recommendations arise from the belief that the "enlightenment" of the "teacher" has been attained or earned through the application of choice, effort, acceptance or surrender, and that other seekers can be taught to do the same.
Of course there can be nothing right or wrong with earnest seeking, meditation, self enquiry, understanding and so on. They are simply what they appear to be. But who is it that is going to choose to make the effort? Where is the effort going to take the apparent chooser to? ¬ where is there to go if there is only oneness? If there is no separate individual there is no volition, and so how can an illusion dispel itself?
There is no person that becomes enlightened. No¬one awakens. Awakening is the absence of the illusion of individuality. Already there is only awakeness, oneness, timeless being, radical aliveness. When the dream seeker is no more it is seen (by no¬one) that there is nothing to seek and no¬one to become liberated.
Here is oneness, the realisation of wholeness that cannot be attained or owned. This is the awakening in which the awareness of what is arises together with the dreaming of that which cannot be known. There can be a dance between dreaming and being, and in that dance there can be a return to the fascination of personal ownership.
However, the realisation that the dream seeker is also oneness is liberation, the uncaused, impersonal, silent stillness which is the celebration of unconditional love. This is all there is.
There is no me or you , no seeker, no enlightenment, no disciple and no guru . There is no better or worse, no path or purpose, and nothing that has to be achieved.
All appearance is source. All that apparently manifests in the hypnotic dream of separation ¬ the world, the life story, the search for home, is one appearing as two the nothing appearing as everything, the absolute appearing as the particular.
There is no separate intelligence weaving a destiny and no choice functioning at any level. Nothing is happening but this, as it is, invites the apparent seeker to rediscover that which is . . . the abiding, uncaused, unchanging, impersonal silence from which unconditional love overflows and celebrates. It is the wonderful mystery."

https://www.theopensecret.com/

Rumi ♡ I was dead then alive (narrated)

I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.

The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.

He said, ‘You’re not mad enough.
You don’t belong in this house.’

I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, ‘Still not wild enough
to stay with us!’

I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.

He said, ‘Its not enough.’
I died.

He said, ‘You are a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting.’

I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, ‘Now you are the candle
for this assembly.’

But I’m no candle. Look!
I’m scattered smoke

He said, ‘You are the Sheikh, the guide.’
But I’m not a teacher. I have no power.

He said, ‘You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings.’

But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.

Then new events said to me,
‘Don’t move. A sublime generosity is
coming towards you.’

And old love said, ‘Stay with me.’

I said, ‘I will.’

You are the fountain of the sun’s light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.

The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you.

Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
Changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.

This comes of smiling back
at your smile.

The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.

That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.

Ed Crowley - Mother Earth’s language of Love.

I was pondering recently
about all the work that
has been needed ...

To translate the various
sacred literatures from
sources and cultures
of all different beliefs...

Around the entire world,
since words were first
recorded, in the most
ancient of all
languages...

So we may understand,
the beauty of these
experiences, told in
all these strange
tongues...

I have some news for all
those scribes and the
translators throughout
the centuries...

They needed not ink,
nor pen or any paper
at all...

No, they should have just
felt winter, spring, summer
and fall...

They only needed to listen,
to the sweet sound of
the rain...

Marvel, as the ocean tides,
rise and fall, again
and again...

Feel the joy of watching
the sun, rise and set...

Observe the moons crescent
grow, even fuller, still yet...

Simply, taste snow, floating
down from the sky...

Gaze at a snowflake, up
close with your eye...

Run through the sand, on
the beach, on a clear
starry night...

Watch the beauty, of the
mystical Butterfly,
softly alight...

None of these need
any translation, no,
it’s not even a
close call...

Behold, they already
speak purely, the most
beautiful language
of all...

It comes from within,
below and above...

It’s Mother Earth’s,
very own,
language of Love...

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Miriam Louisa Simons - Art and Awakening

getting past the words

Words are wonderful when they serve as pointers.  The problem is that we tend to ascribe ‘realness’ or ‘thingness’ to words, forgetting their sole function as symbols representing shared concepts.  In order to get beyond the word it’s necessary to plant one’s feet firmly within its accepted meaning, and then explore what that meaning might be pointing towards.  Art and awakening are two words that are hot potatoes for some reason, and without signing up for the task I seem to have had a default preoccupation with both concepts all my life.  This little essay tries to express what I’ve learned, or rather what I’ve unlearned.

I’ll begin with a couple of definitions:

art
putting things in their ‘right’ place, in order, in the spot where they sing with a rightness independent of one’s cultural conditioning; a cellular-level rightness which is somehow recognized by the body.

awakening
the irreversible apperception that no independent entity exists who could possibly awaken or become enlightened, or be other than whatever this is, here and now.

Art – art as that creative process of finding the ‘right’ place, rather than the art product – was a consuming passion for the first half of my life.  Hey, I even married (and un-married) a guy called Art, and he’s as passionate about creating as I am!  It’s likely that my later pre-occupation with the concept of ‘awakening’ was seeded in the magical experiences that occurred within the creative context, but its flowering would only happen later in life, when concerns with career paths faded.

health and creativity

During the decades spent teaching art and design and immersed in creative practice in my studio, it became obvious to me that overall health in human beings appears to be nurtured, fostered and sustained by enthusiasm and wonder, accompanied by the urge to move, to make.

Finding one’s health (wholeness), purpose, self-esteem and fulfillment seems to depend on these qualities, and artistic work – perhaps more than most other activities – offers a portal through which they may be accessed.  Developing and refining artistic skills which cultivate and express these qualities would surely be the aim of a curriculum for art and design education in a holistic context.

Experiencing Life as a work of art is possible when the process of creating becomes a consciously-held intention, a matrix within which we refine our focus on the details of that which we desire to create. But these are merely fancy words until we come to understand who or what we truly are within the big picture – the macromatrix.  That’s where awakening comes in.

loving what-is

Understanding and healing occur when there is acceptance and appreciation of the what-is of our Life. Love for our Life returns us to Wholeness.  In that Wholeness we wake up from the myth that we were ever separate from the Wholeness – which brings a huge new understanding.  We know that there cannot be, logically or rationally, anything apart from Wholeness, and consequently, that we cannot possibly exist as a separate, independent entity.  We are that Wholeness.  Enthusiasm and wonder arise spontaneously, and we are compelled to create and celebrate as they bathe our perception of the world and its “ten thousand things”.

free-will?

Our desire is the desire of Wholeness.  Our creations are the creations of that Wholeness.  Free-will is something we pretend to ‘have’.  But since there’s no separate entity apart from Wholeness, the will that appears to be ‘ours’ and ‘free’ is in fact the will of the Wholeness.  The will of Wholeness, or Creation, is energy – ubiquitous, amoral and impartial energy.  It is ceaselessly moving and ceaselessly making.  We say it moves according to ‘our’ thoughts.  We say we must change, or focus ‘our’ thoughts in order to create what we wish.  But what we come to understand is that the impulse which seems to be attributable to ‘me’ is (without permission or control) doing all the things we used to take credit or blame for!  Impulse, intention, focus and application of ‘will power’ are all actions of the Wholeness that we are.  And whatever is created via those actions is created by Wholeness.

art is a way

Will is happening, will cannot not happen so long as there are conscious emanations of Wholeness (called sentient beings) being Lived by that Wholeness.  Life’s ex-pression of Wholeness is the only valid description of authentic art.  We exist to express this Wholeness, and art is a Way.  A way-less way, if you like – for the ultimate art is the realization that there is no artist and no way.

The activities that have always interested me most in the art room or studio are those that, rather than providing a pathway for the production of a certain kind of image, are simply explored as a mirror that reflects my assumptions, habits and notions about myself, about art, and about life.  Because these are the only things that obscure the truth of one’s being.  The approaches to that truth are as varied and numerous as there are participants in the playground.  And the truly creative curriculum in the arts will be a resource of ways to explore the most remarkable, miraculous fact that can ever be known:  the wonder of being alive and the recognition that one is no-thing other than that alive-ness.

Awakening is just precisely that.

awareness

Awareness in healthy humans is what allows the capacity for and sense of alive-ness.  Alive-ness cannot be cultivated – it is surely there or not, and if it’s not, you won’t be reading this.  Awareness likewise cannot be cultivated, since, try as we might, we cannot find it!  Yet it is always present.

The presence of Awareness is only obscured by the noise of our notions and opinions about everything. Making things is a wonderful way of meeting these notions.  Awareness itself then performs the remarkable deed of dissolving these hindrances, seemingly opening itself up to more sense of itself. Heightened awareness of all the worlds assumed to be real – both outwardly and in the hidden recesses of the mind – inevitably opens up new perspectives on life, and, if there is ripeness, awakening might ‘happen’.

Without a whisper of will, without a trace of trying, life awakens to itself and knows itself as naked Knowingness.

Without a name, belonging to no person,
with no history, no future, containing nothing,
without preferences, abhorring nothing, needing nothing,
being no-thing:

that no-thing from which all things arise

THAT
which lies beyond the words

Image credit: Library of Babel by Brody Neuenschwander

THIS SHINING WORLD

https://wonderingmindstudio.com/

 

Dorothy Hunt - On Silence

Silence is a deep, interior Presence and absence of ‘self’ that actually has nothing to do with whether there is noise or quiet in the environment or in the mind. What is revealed in Silence is your Being, your Presence, your awake and intimate Awareness…in its deepest dimension, this Silence is what we are, what life is, what moves the universe and simultaneously is its Source.

The deeper the Silence, the greater is the felt sense of the Mystery that sees beyond all thoughts, images, and acquired knowledge. We become aware of a deeper dimension of our Being that is very quiet, very still, completely open, very natural…

Psychologically minded folks may wonder if soaking in Silence is a way of bypassing what needs to be seen or felt or understood. In the true Silence of our awake nature, nothing is avoided, nothing denied, nothing attached. Rather than numbing us to experience, this Silence lovingly invites everything that has been hidden or denied to come out of the shadows into the light. True Silence opens us to the truth of the present moment.

One does not have to effort to find this Silence and Stillness. It is not something we create. It is felt the moment we relax and become receptive, the moment we stop trying to move toward or away from anything.

--Dorothy Hunt, from her book Leaves from Moon Mountain

https://www.dorothyhunt.org/