a field, transparent expanse no inside, no outside no boundary through all things underneath all things before all things from which all things arise - just movement rising and falling
no agitation no naming no reference - one thing to another nothing is object and no attributes thus nothing strikes - one thing against the other no agitation
It is peace, utter peace 'the peace that passeth understanding' the words 'peace' and 'calm' are limp slivers of linguistic conceit they cannot transmit this knowing
HOME of pure freedom all-embracing no me - no past, no identity - completely unbound immersed merged dissolved no-longer only awareness deep unfathomable peace
just the gift that always is Reality's Self
emerging through the door of this transcendent HOME one last kiss and wave off: "this is The Stillness. people live in this Stillness" a respectful, gentle invitation ... with a dash of humour, like ... 'you might like to give this a try ... there's nothing stopping you' (nudge, nudge)
a white liquid light poured through the head into the crevices of the brain down into the body filling every vibrating molecule with exquisite sweetness scintillating divine light nectar of which I had never known before nourishing this material form. A loving embrace - divine LIGHT pouring itself into 'me' Every part of this body responded with delight and fell asleep.
Last night I walked the streets of Oxford with Kabir The night before it was Jesus And the night before, Rumi visited, uninvited!
Every night a different companion but always the same Friend Why go anywhere when the Beloved always comes to you?
I pointed out the smiling houses to Kabir (Have you noticed that houses have a face?) ‘It is I who am smiling’, he said.
‘I am happy to see you’, I said to Atmananda the next night ‘You are happiness itself’, he replied.
I stood outside a chapel And listened to a choir with Brother Lawrence ‘Our love for God is God’s love for us’, he said.
And the next night, Meister Eckhart, ‘There is a huge silence inside each of us That beckons us into itself’ ‘Know nothing’, Socrates said the following night ‘Be everything’, added Parmenides.
I showed Plotinus the gardens But he said, ‘I see only one thing’ I talked with the Buddha But he remained silent I was silent with Moses But he started to sing
I uttered the word ‘I’ But Balyani held his hand to my mouth I asked Huang Po if he could hear the stream ‘There is only the hearing’, he said.
I found William Blake naked in the park ‘Do you see how, through perception, the infinite gives birth to itself?’ he asked
‘He’s right’, Ramana said, ‘The universe is born every moment Through the portal I Am’ And later, when I suggested we rest, ‘I am always at rest’, he smiled
‘Thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair, Thyself how wondrous then?’ Milton asked ecstatically as we looked at the sky
‘Everything shines with being’, Wordsworth said I offered Jesus a drink ‘I am the water of life’, he said.
I walked in silence with Francis ‘My silence is my question’, I said ‘My silence is my answer’, he replied I walked alone one night With the world for my Friend
The next night I found Hafiz drunk on a bench ‘Come taste this wine!’ he called Shams came to join us ‘I am looking for the Friend’, he sighed.
‘I love these night-time walks’, I said to Anandamaya Ma ‘Love only love’, she said I listened to barking dogs with Abinavagupta ‘Know only knowing’, he said ‘I am…’ ‘Shhh! Don’t add anything to it’, Sri Nisargadatta exclaimed.
I danced down the street with Mozart I prayed in every step with Bach I leaned with Primo Levi against a wall Watching friends and lovers and strangers ‘Each of us’, he said ‘bears the imprint Of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each’
Yeats joined us ‘There are no strangers here’, he said ‘Only friends we haven’t yet met’ And Rembrandt agreed ‘If you look at anyone for long enough’, he said They will eventually become your friend’
I watched the sun set with Shelley one night ‘The One remains, the many change and pass’, he said And then, as the moon arose, ‘Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments. Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!’
And last night Rumi followed me home ‘Kiss the ground with every step’, he said ‘Good night’, I said, without words ‘We part without parting’, he smiled
Just live your life as it comes. Keep quietly alert, inquiring into the real nature of yourself. Perception is based on memory and is only imagination. The world can be said to appear but not to be. Only that which makes perception possible is real.
You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown. Give up all names and forms, and the Real is with you. Know yourself as you are. Distrust your mind and go beyond. Do not think of the Real in terms of consciousness and unconsciousness. It is utterly beyond both. It gives birth to consciousness. All else is in consciousness.
Nothing you can see, feel or think is so. Go beyond the personal and see. Stop imagining that you were born. You are utterly beyond all existence and non-existence, utterly beyond all that the mind conceives. Question yourself: Who am I? What is behind and beyond all this? Soon you will see that thinking yourself to be a person is mere habit built on memory. Inquire ceaselessly.
Just be aware of your being here and now. There is nothing more to it. In reality you are not a thing nor separate.
You are the infinite potentiality, the inexhaustible possibility. Because you are, all can be. The universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless capacity to become. You are neither consciousness nor its content. You are the timeless Source. Disassociate yourself from mind and consciousness. Find a foothold beyond and all will be clear and easy.
There is no where in you a paradise that is no place and there You do not enter except without a story.
To enter there is to become unnameable.
Whoever is there is homeless for he has no door and no identity with which to go out and to come in.
Whoever is nowhere is nobody, and therefore cannot exist except as unborn: No disguise will avail him anything
Such a one is neither lost nor found.
But he who has an address is lost.
They fall, they fall into apartments and are securely established!
They find themselves in streets. They are licensed To proceed from place to place They now know their own names They can name several friends and know Their own telephones must some time ring.
If all telephones ring at once, if all names are shouted at once and all cars crash at one crossing: If all cities explode and fly away in dust Yet identities refuse to be lost. There is a name and number for everyone.
There is a definite place for bodies, there are pigeon holes for ashes: Such security can business buy!
Who would dare to go nameless in so secure a universe? Yet, to tell the truth, only the nameless are at home in it.
They bear with them in the center of nowhere the unborn flower of nothing: This is the paradise tree. It must remain unseen until words end and arguments are silent.
If you understand that the world isn’t separated into self and other, you’ll see very clearly that there is no such thing as enlightenment. There can’t be. After all, who is there to be enlightened? You would have to be someone before you could experience enlightenment. There would have to be an ego to get free. But egos don’t get free.
It’s only when you see the Buddha as a separate self that you can form the concept that he’s enlightened. All these spiritual concepts are just creations of mind. What do “I” know of this imagined form you call “me”? Many of the monks who were listening to the Buddha must have realized who he was: no one. But some of them may have wanted to treat him like a guru, to put him in a different category, to think that he was superior to them, a more evolved or exalted being. They may have looked at him with starry-eyed adoration…How could he play into their projections? He kept saying that he didn’t have anything they didn’t have…The story of having an enlightened master, as sweet as it may feel, is the story of separation.
People think that self-realization is something special. But we’re not at home until we’re at home in the ordinary. That’s where it feels comfortable. Someone will say, “How are you?” and I might say, “Fine.” It has joined; it has penetrated. So I’m unrecognizable. I’m standing with everyone else on the corner of the street, eating the hot dog, watching the band go by. I’m neither more nor less than you. If we’re even one breath more or one breath less than anyone else, we’re not at home.
There’s no answer for anything. We can’t explain anything essential in our lives. But why would you want to explain? Does that make you any happier?...There can’t be any teaching offered by the Buddha, because all teachings are dissolved, just like the construct that is happening in your mind right now as you read. It’s all imagined; there’s nothing to teach. Where does the wind go on a still day? And the breath you just took— doesn’t it exist now only as pure imagination? You noticed the breath flowing into your nostrils, and when you don’t have any thought of a past, this is the first breath that has ever been breathed, and now it’s gone. How can you know that it ever happened at all?
The truth is so simple. Every word said, every teaching given, no matter how valuable, leaves a construct where in reality none exists. It assumes someone listening, someone speaking, something to be known. In trying to tell the truth, it creates something extra. It adds something unnecessary to what is, and thus it becomes a lie.
Byron Katie, excerpt from her book, " Mind at Home with Itself"
Go gently today, don’t hurry or think about the next thing. Walk with the quiet trees, can you believe how brave they are—how kind? Model your life after theirs. Blow kisses at yourself in the mirror
especially when you think you’ve messed up. Forgive yourself for not meeting your unreasonable expectations. You are human, not God—don’t be so arrogant.
Praise fresh air clean water, good dogs. Spin something from joy. Open a window, even if it’s cold outside. Sit. Close your eyes. Breathe. Allow
the river of it all to pulse through eyelashes fingertips, bare toes. Breathe in breathe out. Breathe until
you feel your bigness, until the sun rises in your veins. Breathe until you stop needing anything to be different.
She decides to return to the simple, hummingbird sipping nectar outside open window, pink petals lit up and laughing with sun
she rests her hand on her own hurting heart, breathes the kind of breath that releases all trying, all wanting, all waiting - all promises of saviors and some day.
She allows rain to pound hard on all that no longer shelters.
She remembers there is medicine, the very best kind of medicine, inside the tender-sweet song of now.
She remembers it is never not now.
She decides to return to the simple, rolls out yoga mat, allows each stretch, each bow, each breath to teach her all the secrets.
She whispers namaste to her own reflection, and these words whisper back -
It is enough to be you.
She lets a lifetime of sorrow seep from her tired, trying bones, lets it rest on the ground with every mighty fallen petal. And she breathes.
