Natalie Gray - Whatever Form Appears

Question:  Given your non-dual realisation, can you identify what was the essential factor, method or practice that allowed you to notice or realise your natural, non-dual state of being or realisation in a permanent way? Does remaining in non-dual awareness, for you, require effort, or is it effortlessly spontaneous? I have practiced meditation and studied in many traditions for many years. I have made good progress, with many non-dual realisations through time. However, I have not been able to realise my essential nature in a permanent, stable manner. Buddhist meditation is my main practice, however, I am very interested to [know] how I can permanently realise Self with instruction from any and all traditions and those who are awake. How to do this? I know that I am the absolute and utterly complete. There remains that disconnect, however subtle, that is an apparent barrier to recognising here and now, all that I am.


Answer: There is a flaw in the question you ask, which is leading you down a dead-end road, and this is creating the apparent barrier of which you write. You ask if there was a method or practice I used to notice or realize my non-dual nature and you ask how you can do this. The flaw is the use of the words "you" and "I". Having nondual awareness is not something that "you" can do. It is not something that "I" did. Nondual awareness just happens (and feeling separate also just happens).


A more effective question might be, "What or Who is It that has or does not have nondual awareness?" Ask yourself, "Who is It that is using a method or practice? What is It that is trying to realize Its non-dual state of being? Who or What has practiced meditation, studied in many traditions and made good progress?" Isn't the One "with many non-dual realisations through time" the same One who has "not been able to realize Its essential nature"?


The answer to all these questions is the same--It is (as the sages have said through time) the One, the Absolute.  No matter which state is appearing--nondual realization or a sense of separation--it is not "you" experiencing it, nor is it "you" causing it. It is the Absolute. It is never NOT the Absolute.


When you say, "There remains that disconnect, however subtle, that is an apparent barrier to recognising here and now, all that I am," you are failing to recognize that "all that you are" in any moment is what appears in that moment, whether what appears is nondual awareness, a feeling of separation, or any other thought, state or emotion. "You" are simply a manifestation of the Absolute, and sometimes "you" are aware of that and sometimes "you" are not. And "you" is always and only a manifestation of the Absolute, whether "you" realize it or not.


Realize that nondual awareness will not change what appears by one iota. "You" will not suddenly have continuous, uninterrupted nondual awareness, continual bliss or continual anything, because when nondual awareness shows up, the "you" that sees one state as 'enlightened' and one state as 'unenlightened' will no longer exist. All states (and all experiences for that matter) are manifestations of the One--nothing more, nothing less. 


Therefore, longing, seeking, meditation practice, awareness, non-awareness (even the experience of "you") may continue to appear. And "you" have not been, nor will "you" ever be the one experiencing it or causing it. There is nothing that "you" can do--no method, no practice, no meditation, no belief--to get yourself there, because "you" are already That; That is already "you," in whatever form (thought, state of being, awareness, emotion, physicality) that appears. 

 

http://findingthebuddha.blogspot.com/

 

Jeannie Zandi - Zero

There is something that does not move no matter what comes, no matter what will be lost.

I like to call it zero. It’s sitting in zero. It’s sitting in Being. It’s so slow that it has stopped. And it has a fierce fidelity to what is authentically unfolding in the moment out of Being. It is like a fierce mama bear protective of the little things that poke their heads out in this quiet. It stands with them. It stands like a birthing mama guarding the little head as it crowns. It celebrates the purity and the newborn-ness. It says bow here. Do not add anything. Do not take anything away. Don’t run from it. Don’t pelt fruit at it. Here we stand with what’s being born in its tiny infancy, authentic and shyly showing itself, birthed from Being. No care for what it can be used for, where it’s going, what it means about you, me or someone else. It simply stands with that crowning without a name, without a use, standing with that moment because it’s precious, because it’s the Holy unfolding itself.

We seldom have felt someone standing here, before things get named, in a total abiding with the shoots of our unfolding as Being. We have forgotten it is possible. We zoom over our beauty. We blow past the subtle petals of our unfolding, and this holy birthing that’s happening all the time through us. No matter if the newborn bits are ensuring our growth or enlightenment or our doom, proof of our goodness or sure evidence of our cursedness — before all that, this moment right here and what emerges authentically is Holy.

 

 In Being, we’re not manipulating anything. We’re not trying to go anywhere. We’re not trying to heal anything. We follow the thread of what’s alive and we behold it in reverent silence, even if every egoic hand wants to grasp it and turn it into something. “Does this mean I’m going somewhere? Am I doing it right? Am I there yet?” The Holy is shining and peeking its head out, now, like this. Shhhhhhhh.

We are not shown how to stay with the natural expression of unfolding through us, though we were born knowing it. As we grew up, no one saw it, no one reflected it, stood with it, protected it, had faith in it, or knew it was going somewhere good simply because it was. It was slapped, shocked, harshed upon, told it wasn’t enough, sped up, and turned around. We were left in concept-land, zooming over our actual life in our fighter plane, high up and away from this right here: our own organic unfolding. Now we’re stuck up here in our everyday minds with our will trying to build something out of concept that will never be as solid as what the Holy organically reveals.

We can stand in what emerges naturally from Being. We can slow down to the speed of Being, which is zero. It has nothing to show for itself. It’s simply a miracle as it is. Everything that is zero is true. Everything that has any kind of velocity inside is false and born of fear.

True movement is pure and inside it we are zero. It is Beingness flowing into Beingness and looks like movement but it’s empty. When we say nothing ever happens, it is because when we sit in zero, there is only zero and even what moves is still. At some point when you imbibe it a bit, you start to feel it as yourself. That fidelity starts to wake in you. The refusal to dance like a trained dog for anyone is born, even if the mind says that everyone is going to leave you and that you completely suck. In refusing to preempt the unfolding present, you stay true to the speed of Being. You don’t move unless Being moves, because you cannot leave that place and offer anything real, and you’re sick to death of manipulation and skipping over what’s actually, purely and humbly here.

Nobody can make you fall in love with your Being. Sadly, we think that there’s something out there that’s more important than our slow, unfolding Being. There isn’t. Just shiny, crappy mirages. To live from Being is to die in the fidelity of going nowhere and being nobody.

 As soon as we add anything to this simple Being, we’re off trying to split ourselves apart. What a glorious feeling it is to see even for a moment that we so deeply belong, that we are so deeply goodness itself. Here’s our zero. Our pool, our wellspring, like a big vacuum, a big dark hole in the center of us that we formerly thought was our problem. It’s actually a portal to the Holy. And through that empty Being the Holy paints the world. There are few of us who are in utter fidelity to the tiny sprout-like movement of that vacuum. We’re too busy trying to get big, get good, get strong, get sophisticated, get safe. We have forgotten how to rest as zero and stand in what’s simple and authentic.

I had the utter good fortune in my life to be faced with a crossroads: I could find that little bubbling wellspring of authenticity, that ground of solid immovable Being, or I could kill myself. Because somehow the volume was turned up on the suffering enough that it was either be true or die from being driven crazy by the mind’s insanity. I was so disgusted and unable to live inside my little dog dance any more. It sounds virtuous, but it was simply survival, crawling onto the shore of the empty naked moment.

You get to stand with this one. This slowest, nothing-to-show-for-yourself one, this that is authentically here, that doesn’t feel like it’s enough. At first we’re terrified of zero–we’re terrified we’ll be no one, we’ll be nowhere, no one will love us, we’ll end up in a gutter, the train will go on without us. But below, behind, throughout and beyond that, there’s just this zero. And out of the fidelity to that Being, out of this magnificent black hole that we are, an inordinate amount of glory spills, and each movement is the poetry of being in motion, utterly empty.

http://jeanniezandi.com/ 

Naomi Stone - Burning with love for you

art Rassouli

 Oh, beautiful light of my life,
inspiration of my soul,
and the One who opens my heart!
I awaken in this silent darkness
and feel the ever expanding Joy
your Presence gives.
How do I share it?
How do we learn to live with
the infinity of you
that opens into
all that reaches beyond
everything we know.
All that you are is so much more
than all that manifests
before our eyes,
more than every universe
and the immeasurable skies
we name and describe!
You go on creating,
dwelling in the unseen,
revealing to us
the limits of our control
in a world in chaos,
inviting our faith in your
compassion, your mercy,
your forgiveness,
and the greatness of your love.
You open your arms to gather us
in the comforts of your inexpressible grace.
Oh, strengthen our faith in your reach,
in your power over all that exists.
Help us surrender our
foolish delusions that we know
anything at all about
who you truly are!
It is difficult for us to
comprehend the endless space of you,
to imagine vast
unlimited possibilities.
We fall on our knees, hide our faces,
and feel the fear of such greatness.
You scatter wildflowers
around us, caress us with
soft breezes, help us up
and gather us close to your heart.
We feel unworthy and
unable to know how to live
in helplessness.
Though shadows hover
over the world,
though fears coil around
our thoughts
to make us doubt and
worry and wonder
how we will live,
how we will find our way,
it is faith that rises from deep
within our souls that
kisses hope alive.
We use words to try and speak of you,
words so small
they fall like autumn leaves before
your magnificence.
We sing and the song cannot
reach around the divine mystery of
of all that you are.
All creation pales before
the brilliance that blinds us
in your glory.
Your prophets and poets and mystics,
your divine ambassadors,
your angels and archangels,
your messengers of love,
share countless stories of your miracles,
your goodness, and your gifts,
and yet they cannot touch
the omnipotence of you.
Oh teach us to surrender and stop
fighting divine truth that cannot be changed
or hidden or controlled!
Show us the way to trust your
promises and live in the kingdom of you,
an existence where all are welcome!
Awaken our spirits flowing from
your divine spirit,
spiraling and touching the earth
and opening the bridge
that connects all worlds to
the kingdom of you.
I reached the end of all we know,
became lost on paths to nowhere and
saw the futility of my words,
and I called out to you,
night after night after night,
day after day after day.
With an open heart, I asked
you to pray in me, for I no longer
knew how to pray.
Perhaps, I never did.
I surrendered all that I ever
believed I was.
You swept me into your blinding beauty,
and overwhelming love,
as volcanoes erupted, and hurricanes blew,
tornadoes wiped out towns,
waves washed over islands and
earthquakes split open the earth.
I saw through the sun.
I saw the stars fall from the sky.
I saw all the evil done in the world,
as mountains crumbled,
and I saw there was no darkness great enough
to hide from your gaze.
Yet, in the midst of every vision,
you held me close to reveal the truth
that the only life I have
is the one you’ve given me.
The only life that exists beyond it all
is you, and we are the light in your loving eyes.
We come alive when you create us
and we are lost in your gaze
in the blink of an eye.
I became a living flame of your love
burning with love for you.
My only life was consumed in
a love beyond everything that exists.
I live in the fire and creation of your love,
and I love through the power of
your love moving through me.
This is the testament of my heart,
my song that sings
of where I have been and
of what I have seen,
and what I share with you now
with outstretched hands
and an open heart.

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Amata Natasha Goldie - In the Age of the Heart

art Sandy Jones


 In the Age of the Heart

Compassion grows as wild blossoms

Rampant and free

Filling fields as far as the eye can see

In the Age of the Heart

Gratitude flows over

In every cell of our being

From the microcosm to the macrocosm

In the Age of the Heart

Hands of healing will replace violence

And Love will be our language

In the Age of the Heart

The repressed will find their voice

And falsehood shall crumble

In the Age of the Heart

Life will be lived

As a sacred gift

Thankfulness, generosity and reciprocity

Shall fill our hearts and minds

In the Age of the Heart

All souls upon Earth

Shall awaken

To the truth

Of our shared divinity

Unity will reign

And Love will be our language

https://ashramoftheethers.wordpress.com/

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Rumi ♡ "From paradise to paradise"

One by one
our friends
filled with joy and quest
begin to arrive

one by one our friends
the worshipers of ecstasy
begin to arrive

more friends and sweethearts
filling you with love
are on their way

darlings of spring
journeying from gardens
begin to arrive

one by one
living their destiny
in this world

the ones who are gone are gone
but the ones who survived
begin to arrive

all their pockets
filled with gold
from endless treasures

bringing gifts
for the needy of the world
begin to arrive

the weak and the exhausted
the frightened by love
will be gone

the rejuvenated
the healthy and happy
begin to arrive

the pure souls
like the spectrums
of the shining sun

descending from the high heavens
to lowly earth
begin to arrive

luscious and happy
the blessed garden
whose heavenly fruits

spring forth
from the virgin winter
begin to arrive

those who are born
from the roots
of generosity and love

taking a journey
from paradise to paradise
begin to arrive

-- Ghazal 891
Translation by Nader Khalili
"Rumi -- Fountain of Fire"
Cal-Earth Press, 1994

 

source 

Hafiz - Early morning, drunk from the night before

Early morning, drunk from the night before
Wine in hand, asked the harpist to play more.
For my mind’s journey, sent forth supplies of wine
From Existence City, sent him to explore.
Beautiful wine-seller gave me a sip of wine
I was safe from trickster Fate’s horror and gore.
The wine-bearer to me said, with arched brows,
O target, arrows of reproach on you pour
You won’t gird your waist with such binding belt
If you see that it is yourself who becomes sore.
Go and lay this trap of yours for another bird
Phoenix, at great heights will fly and soar.
Yet bind, belt, and trap are from Kingly grace
To adore itself and show endless amour.
Friend and player and bearer are all He
Water and clay to this path are but the door.
Give wine and let our ship happily sail
Upon this endless ocean without a shore.
Hafiz, our existence is a metaphor
This dreamy tale we tour and implore.

 

Patrick Willis (Les Visible) - Greetings (Hare Krishna)

Greetings to the one that rules the 18 million internal
and external universes.
Greetings to the one who created everything out of itself
Who permeates and rules it and is the consciousness of and
In it
and who dwells in me

Greetings to the one who is one alone and the many as one
Who is the substance of things unseen
Who is always more than there is
no matter
How much there may be
The rising sun that never hits the zenith

Greetings to the living light behind all appearances
Who composes the appearances and is not what appears
Greetings to the qualities and virtues that make up the personality of
The ineffable in the cloud of unknowing that shrouds the blinding world and
Humbles everything before it and which
Dwells in me.

Greetings to the unassailable unmoving center
From which spirals the galaxies and worlds
Like the spiral of a closed fist
Of perfect concentration
That holds it all in place that
Moves it all that forms and un-forms and does not
Begin or end and which dwells in me.

Greetings to that which endures and prevails
And is the life in everything
That meets and greets itself knowing and unknowing
That scatters itself into uncountable pieces and
Gathers them altogether again and
That dwells in me

Greetings to the dynamic animating principle.
Greetings to the one that does not know time nor size but
Does know sequence and form

Greetings to the one whose idea is complete in the genesis and
Is the intelligence behind evolution and design and not the result of them.
Greetings to what cannot be known but whose presence can be practiced
And enjoyed and who dwells in me.

Greetings in the before and after that both spill into the endless now
Greetings to the one who commands the superiors and inferiors
Whose every effort serves the entire
Who is the one who waits before
In the midst and at the end of every thought, word and deed

Greetings to the mind inside the mind of every architect in every dream
Who waits and watches forever and who
Abides in me.

Greetings from within the sleep that struggles for awakening
That cries out for union with the beloved
That cries in this moment for awakening to the one
Who dwells in me.

Greetings
many greetings and
much gratitude
Greetings and greetings and
much gratitude

Hare Krishna

 
source http://visible-stream.com/

 

Patrick Willis (Snordster) - The Frayed Angels

Visuals from the incomparable Kscope here: https://vimeo.com/21912350



The frayed angels shed their wings
and descend
into earth’s turmoil
burying their sunlight
in a cloth
of sleek
and willing flesh

that…

incomplete forever
wanders the thirsty deserts of unrequited desire

in dreams sometimes we touch
that place of peace
where longing ends

where the long road of countless sleeps
beckons into the cross roads of awakening

the punishment of separation ends

the slaughter of innocence

the ravaged hearts
and faces of those
who lost their love

there is nothing in this life so sweet
as the touch
the embrace
of one who has come
across all the vastness
of lifetimes

to lie tranquil in your arms

it is as close to paradise
as we
are permitted to come
here…

the casual couplings
the lust of power to possess
are only shadows of this love

ceremonies of torment and loss

for the more one desires
the greater the effort to have and discard

the greater the distance from ones own heart

every living thing
struggles
to hold
to that one memory of themselves
in which the candle of love
burned
however briefly…
so brightly

All doubt and hate are merely faith
and love suppressed
And the inability to love worse than any death

Death being only the boat
that sails
us through and into
the fields of eternal peace

not even the worst of us can avoid this forever

it for this mercy alone
that forever exists

there is nothing that you can do
for which he will not forgive you

I wish only that I might linger all of my days in love

Forging that bond that spans
all time
and change
and washes away for all time
The weakness and stupidities of my fear

Fear,
which is all that has ever stood
between me
and the ones I loved

Fear
that has made a lie so many times
Of the living truth
I AM

Like all of you

An embodiment of god

all possibilities
at birth were delivered
into our hands
yet we give ourselves into
subjugation to our servants
for ridicule and confinement

Cast out from the castles from where
we
as kings and queens
ruled all things from within the temple of the heart

cast out into the trackless wastes of our own confusions
amnesia driven
hungry and alone
while those created to serve us
spill our wine
eat our food
and laugh at the ignorance that
has closed our eyes
to the beauty of ourselves

never again will I let myself be
tormented by fear

the love killer

the life killer

Death of a sort comes to us all
no matter who we are
we cannot escape that

we can only accept
and wonder
to whom did it happen?

let go all chains that hold the image
down

Earth does not speak unless the spirit flames

these times in which we live
dance like some drunken jester
on the edge
of the abyss

great things are within our reach
even as we wait we can see…

the first glimmer of that dawn
for which
so long
we have waited
to see

It has nearly broken me…

but nothing is beyond repair

truly let this moment be
your last moment
of regret

let your heart see
that you
have not touched the best times yet

take back your wings no longer
frayed and fallen

let us rise and soar
as if no one
had ever gone before. 

 https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Snordster

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