The Boy And The Starfish And The Yawning Chasm Of Infinity

 

 

Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone · The Boy And The Starfish And The Yawning Chasm Of Infinity

 

 

 

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Nancy Neithercut ~ Love sings me

 art Gun Legler

 

 

 How many see the self as the enemy? They feel that something is wrong and hear that there are some who live in apparent bliss, without attachment, and they long to get rid of that as well! They love so many things with an ache that they feel is wrong somehow.
They desire love and feel they cannot find it... yet they are looking at it always.... it is just the idea of love that seems to block this obvious recognition

I see you and I know you are love...
You are the jewel of the universe... through your eyes, love catches a glimpse of its own reflection...
and I weep and I weep and I weep...

in love as love through love
love in love with itself...
through your beautiful beautiful eyes

I wandered to the edge of all and everything...
The known world exploded and every shard pierced my heart and eviscerated me, love burned every secret place I thought I could hide in... found the deepest darkest places I never knew existed... acres of blood soaked meadows and ashes of bones blowing away...
....until there was not even nothing...

But no one fell off that cliff, as there is no where to fall and no one who could...
This unutterable vacancy swept through my brain like a great wind, blowing away all that I thought I knew... all ideas were seen to be false... including all ideas of truth...
and love...

I returned to the known world, knowing I was a flowing thought dream... that all things were mental fabrications...
Yet the infinite beauty of thingness, wondrous beyond compare...
The amazing beauty of all the stories ever written, the heartbeat of humanity... love and love lost, and longing for love... and the pain we get to feel so deeply... all of it feels like love...
the exquisite story of love sings me... sings these words these lines
...these tears

 

 

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Ales Us ~ What all this is

 

art Akiane Kramarik

 

 What happens can even after so called shift, as it usually does, appear as a feeling that it is you who are doing what body does, though that is of course also just what appears to be happening. Even deep comprehension that what happens is just a life happening all by itself, an automatic streaming of seeming events, does not prevent the sense of doership to appear. Just the same is with thoughts and the thinker, feelings and the feeler.
  The I am sense, appearing as a by product of social interactions, is as natural for humans as is chirping and posing of birds for attracting the mate, or communicating by chemicals through roots, air, or via insects, for trees, what all displays the sense of individualness in a certain form. A sense of being a separate entity seems to be a prerequisite for the survival and successful functioning of the specie.
  All those mystical experiences, of oneness, of no-self, of being the pure awareness, or being one with everything or with god, are but mental phenomenons and have as such no importance outside of narrow context of personal story.
  As I see, it is the very comprehension of own uniqueness and simultaneous illusoriness of the person together with utter impossibility to ever know and understand what all this is, what makes life feel as unfathomable mystery and wondrous beyond comprehension. And knowing that this too is just a fleeting experience, just a by passing mirage, does not diminish it but rather makes it even more wonderful and precious.

 

 

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Adyashanti ~ from "The End of Your World~

 pic by Martin Stranka

 

 

 "When we see this moment as it truly is, we see something extraordinary. 'We' don’t feel the need to turn this moment into anything other than what it is, because it is extraordinary as it is. When we perceive this, we have healed the illusory split within ourselves, and we have started to heal the illusory split within the greater consciousness of humanity. Our greatest contribution to humanity is our awakening. It is to literally leave the state of consciousness that the mass of humanity is in and discover the truth of our being, which is the truth of all beings. When we do this, we come back as a gift, a newborn. We are, in a certain sense, reborn.
That force, that energy that moves us, is at the same time the very substance of our own being, our own self. This energy is undivided. It is forever completely transcendent and forever completely right here, right now, this moment. There is never a need for a different, better moment.

The great definition of enlightenment is simply the natural state of being. We have been hypnotized into thinking that the perception of division and fear and conflict is actually the natural state of humanity. But at another point, when we’ve become more conscious, we see that this state of division is not natural. As I’ve said before, it takes a ***tremendous amount of energy to maintain the illusion of division, because it’s not the natural state.
 This fact should be obvious, because division doesn’t feel natural. It may feel common, it may feel like it’s the usual thing, you may see it all around you, but when you feel that same conflict inside yourself, you realize it doesn’t feel natural. It feels divided; it feels conflicted. the natural state.  
So the state of consciousness that a great majority of humanity is in is not natural. It’s altered. We do not need to go looking for altered states of consciousness; humanity is already in an altered state of consciousness. It’s called separation. Separation is the ultimate altered state of consciousness.

 Contrary to a popular misunderstanding, enlightenment has nothing to do with an altered state of consciousness. Enlightenment is an unaltered state of consciousness. It is pure consciousness as it actually is, before it is turned into something, before it is altered in any way. The kingdom of heaven is the natural state of being.

This simple and natural state of awakening, this allowing ourselves to literally disappear into absolute simplicity, is not seen as a big deal. It’s just natural. It’s not better than or higher than anything or anybody. It’s simply the natural state of being. It’s totally democratic. It’s the inheritance of 'everybody'."

 

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 http://www.adyashanti.org/

Mahmoud Shabestari ~ Free will

 

 You say,
" I myself have Free-will,
For my body is the horse
and my soul the rider,
The reins of the body
are in the hands of the soul,
The entire direction is given to me."
Oh ! foolish one,
these are falsehoods
and delusions
That come
from an illusory
existence.
As your essence
is nothingness,
How can you
have Free-will ?
Seeing that
your being
is one with
not-being,
Whence comes
this Free-will
of yours ?
Imagination
distributes
actions
As in a play
or a farce,
For when
your actions
were planned,
Before your
existence,
You were
created for a
certain purpose,
By the desire
of the Truth.
Therefore
is man predestined,
before his existence,
To certain
appointed
work.
. . . (Oh,
wondrous
ways of Thine,
without how
or why I)
The honour
of man
consists
of slavery,
In having
no share
of Free-will.
Of himself
man has nothing,
Yet of
good and evil
God asks him,
Man has
no choice,
he is under
control.
Oh !
poor soul,
he seems free,
yet is a slave.
Give yourself
up to the Truth,
For you are
helpless
in his grasp ;
Freedom
from self
you will find
in the All,
And, O Dervish !
in the Truth
you will find
riches.

 

from the secret rose garden

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Franklin Merrell-Wolff ~ The Supreme adventure

 

 

 At long last the forest lay behind,
Before stretched a desert, bleak and empty,
Beyond, a mountain, dim in the dancing haze,
Reaching upward, defeating all measure.
I sat resting in the shade of the forest-rim,
The last cool stream at my feet.
Deeply I drank refreshment and pondered:
Long had the journey been and weary
In the maze and the dark of the forest,
Oft had I drifted down false lanes,
Oft had courage been shaken,
Yet I never quite failed to try again
And at last the dim trails were finished.
Behind lay desires, vain and incomplete,
Ambitions inadequate, yearnings now stilled;
Before, reaching all but endlessly,
A dreary waste, trail-less and void of sign.
It seemed I beheld the Goal, dim in the distance,
But, again, It seemed not there.
Was uncertain possibility worth the effort?
Could anything be worth the cost
Paid, and yet remaining to be paid?
Oh I for the rest without ending,
If not the rest of Victory,
Then the surcease of defeat,
But in any case rest.
Thus I pondered while a new strength grew
And resolution again was born
Of the ashes of burned desires and yearnings.
Methought: “Better onward continue,
Else all this effort uncompleted
Useless would lie in the void of vain endeavor.
If thought of achievement thrills no longer,
Yet ‘twere better to complete the half-finished.
Behind lie values exhausted and lost,
No longer potent to ‘rouse the soul
That, in vision, a Beyond hath glimpsed.
Onward alone lieth hope
To fill the void.”
At last I arose, resolution firm,
Gathered my staff and compass ̶
Sole possessions of the final hour ̶
And strode me forth beyond visible trail.
Ere long the forest behind me vanished,
Consumed in refracting desert haze;
Then all about the emptiness of burning waste.
On I journeyed in time-expanding void,
Unafraid, but weary with the seeming endlessness;
On I journeyed o’er rock and sand and thorn,
Alone in the stillness that is not Peace;
On I journeyed, thirsting ever more and more
For refreshing waters of the forest past recall;
Yet on I journeyed as thirst grew numb,
The mountain, haze consumed, as the forest.
And time, my tread less resolute became;
The void without became likewise a void within,
All endeavor unavailing.
I sank me down upon a rock,
Caring naught, accepting what might be.
Then spoke the VOICE,
In accents strong, cheering, comforting,
Calling from out the Beyond,
Telling of the Glory There,
Recalling the need of forest wanderers.
Within me a new courage grew, a new determination.
Once more I ‘rose, onward moving,
Feeling more clear, though not yet seeing
The ancient Mount of untellable Majesty.
The desert journey, all but finished,
Now lay behind.
Already the slopes, mounting in steeper gradient,
Promise of final fulfillment offered.
Steeper grew the Way, but easier,
Strange paradox of a World, inverting former values.
Quickly I ascended, filled with strength
Born downward from Beyond.
The haze grew thin and vanished.
Then, before me, immeasurable Largeness,
Buttresses of the ancient Mountain;
Height rising on height, beyond all vision.
Filled anew with cheer and rich assurance,
Fast I climbed, until at last
Above me stretched the awful cliff,
Transcending the final reach of thought.
Here I lingered but briefest hour,
Extracting from thought its inmost core,
Seeking the Power above all powers.
Success crowned effort beyond all hope
And, as it were, in Time’s briefest instant,
Outreaching time and space and cause, I rose
To unthinkable heights beyond unthinkable heights,
Finding at last the ancient Home,
Long forgotten, yet Known so well.
Gone was the forest-world, a new World mine;
Joy untellable, Knowledge all-consuming,
Eternity stretching everywhere;
Not anywhere aught but I
Sustaining all universes,
Their origin and consummation.
Darkness of ineffable LIGHT
Enveloping all.

II

Darkness, Silence, Voidness, utter,
At once, Fullness in every sense;
Deeps beyond seeing, beyond feeling, beyond thought;
At the inmost Core of all I AM,
Sustaining all, not different from all.
Untellable ages, a moment of time,
All time, but one moment there.
From the inmost Core, descending ̶ downward, outward ̶
Distances immeasurable I came,
‘Till finding the Thought unutterable,
Here, lingering, I dwelt for a season,
Thinking what I could not say,
Understanding transcending human conceiving,
Pure Meaning close-packed and overflowing,
Containing of libraries the substance all
and more, ne’er told.
Filled to the brim, I descended, down through the haze,
Which, ever enclosing the world below,
Holds dispart the Mountain Top
From the nether world of outer life.
Gone was the desert and forest-maze,
Scenes of age-old wanderings.
The Way to Heights ineffable a mystery no more,
A new mystery spread below.
Seething multitudes rushing to and fro
O’er far-reaching plane;
Bent over, searching the earth,
Grubbing here and there, ne’er still,
Driven as slaves, joyless and dull,
Seeking the Gold, finding dross.
One here, one there, standing in pause
Looking upward, eyes dim with pain,
Yearning, questioning, searching,
Not Knowing, yet hungering.
These, aliens all in a foreign land;
“Thou would’st of this harvest share,
Of souls drawn Home to Peace and Joy?
Then seek again the way
In yon fields below.
None knows the final secret of human soul,
So ever We try and try again,
In every way, old memory to ‘rouse.
Go forth and try thy way.”
So again I pondered the trails I knew,
The effort wasted, endeavor fruitless,
The final Success, the Key thereto.
Methought:
“‘Tis needless, the journey so hard should be.
A little turn here, another there,
And many a barrier and morass deep,
Easily surmounted will be.
I shall tell of the Way
Which at last I found,
That others in a clearer Light may See.”
So I drew a chart, the best I knew,
And here it is for all
Who, wandering in forest and desert drear,
Wish that a clearer Way might revealed be.

 

 

 

my awakening 

 

Chuck Surface ~ In astounded, lucid confusion

 Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī ~ Born: September 30, 1207, Balkh, Afghanistan

 

 When Shams stole Rumi's Heart,
The Wilderness of The Unknowable,
Encroached upon the temple of Rumi's mind,
Entwining, around, within, and through,
Until the knowledge that had accrued there,
Became tinder for The Fire of Experience...

And a Brilliant Scholar became a Brilliant Sufi.

Through the brightening of Love’s ember,
Was the framework of the known,
Made ever more brittle and dry,
And ignited, at last,
Through an encounter,
With The Flame of Love…

Alight in the Heart of The Beloved.

Then roof and walls collapsed,
Words, pages, chapters, books consumed,
Revealing, in the ashes of the known,
The Love in knowledge hidden,
Veiled in words, concealed in concepts,
And Rumi lived thereafter, as he wrote…

“In astounded, lucid confusion." 

 

 

 

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www.GardenOfTheBeloved.com

 

 

Yahia Lababid ~ Encounter

I stirred in the small hours of the morning. Sensing a presence, I did not return to sleep, but ventured into the living room, apprehensively. There, by the balcony, sat a familiar figure—cross-legged and reading in the semi-dark, with just the milky moonlight for company.

I do not know how I knew, but I did. I recognized the intruder, at once, with a mixture of dread and affection. “I’m sorry,” were the only words to leave my lips. “I’m sorry, too,” replied my longed-for self, with a sigh of infinite kindness and pity.

He did not rise to greet me and, somehow, spoke without words, transmitting what was needed. Catching his glistening eye, the caring made me cry. “You’ve taken every detour to avoid me,” he gently reproached. “For every step I’ve taken towards you, you’ve taken back two.”

I did not know what to say in my defence (how could I protest against myself?). “I missed you,” he said, “and feared you’d forgotten me.” His admonishment was tender as a kiss. “I visit from time to time, and hope you’ll ask me to stay.” I knew what he said was true, and felt that way, too.

“I worried,” he continued, “if I postponed this visit, we might never meet, in this life … and so I came to sharpen your appetite.” He rose and moved towards me. “There’s no need to speak, return to sleep. But when you rise, try to remember me. And to keep awake.”

 

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