A story has a beginning and end.
I don't have a beginning and end.
A story describes things.
I'm not describable.
If I tell you a story about this,
I lie - it's not a story.
You want to have self-disclosure,
meaning; you want stories
that appeal to your story, so
that you feel you have received
something meaningful.
When you have no story, when you
have nothing meaningful,
unsplit reality opens.
To want the description, the story,
to want to get others' stories,
that is human.
Beyond the storied, beyond the human
perspective, lives Reality.
The Reality that is wholly other
than the human framework,
the Reality that is not one
centimeter away from where
and who you are.
I will give a brief version of
my story, although it is
worthless:
I went through a great deal of
seeking for truth. I took
risks, I reached a point
where I didn't care what
happened to me.
I lost my mind, my senses,
my reality.
I reintegrated.
I was no one, living
as someone, but
no one was here.
This made no sense,
yet it did make sense:
the sense it
made was poetic,
otherworldly.
Gradually, little
by little, it became
more "functional"
in the day to day
world.
It led me to study
certain things,
to unfold a certain
life.
I kept a low profile.
I put one foot in front
of the other.
I didn't advertise
my awareness.
I felt humbled by
"all this," and
I tread carefully
through the maze
constructed on
this planet.
Now, here I am.
I never left.
I am where I never
left, and never
existed.
What else is there?
A lasting
marriage
when devotion has claimed you for its own
no longer any chance to stray
a brief fling with illusion no longer satisfies
the truth demands utter fidelity
with no possibility of divorce
All pain must be faced
and embraced as the true countenance of
your beloved
All fear must be met
and recognized as the thrill of tasting
the unknowable
All joy must be surrendered
and acknowledged as a gift with
no giver
This union only requires telling the truth
even when the truth shatters your dreams
even when the truth leaves you emptied out
even when the truth reveals your counterfeit existence
then there is no other possibility
then happily ever after.
In the recesses of the
lotus-shaped hearts
of all, there shines as
pure intellect
(Absolute
Consciousness )the
Paramatman, who is
the same as
Arunachala Ramana.
When the mind melts
with love of Him, and
reaches the inmost
recess of the Heart
wherein He dwells as
the Beloved, the
subtle eye of pure
intellect opens and
He reveals himself as
Pure Consciousness.
~Ramana Maharshi quote and image, submitted to AdyashantiSatsang
by Robert O'Hearn
Non-Duality
The bell tolls at four in the morning.
I stand by the window,
barefoot on the cool floor.
The garden is still dark.
I wait for the mountains and rivers to reclaim their shapes.
There is no light in the deepest hours of the night.
Yet, I know you are there
in the depth of the night,
the immeasurable world of the mind.
You, the known, have been there
ever since the knower has been.
The dawn will come soon,
and you will see
that you and the rosy horizon
are within my two eyes.
It is for me that the horizon is rosy
and the sky blue.
Looking at your image in the clear stream,
you answer the question by your very presence.
Life is humming the song of the non-dual marvel.
I suddenly find myself smiling
in the presence of this immaculate night.
I know because I am here that you are there,
and your being has returned to show itself
in the wonder of tonight's smile.
In the quiet stream,
I swim gently.
The murmur of the water lulls my heart.
A wave serves as a pillow
I look up and see
a white cloud against the blue sky,
the sound of Autumn leaves,
the fragrance of hay-
each one a sign of eternity.
A bright star helps me find my way back to myself.
I know because you are there that I am here.
The stretching arm of cognition
in a lightning flash,
joining together a million eons of distance,
joining together birth and death,
joining together the known and the knower.
In the depth of the night,
as in the immeasurable realm of consciousness,
the garden of life and I
remain each other's objects.
The flower of being is singing the song of emptiness.
The night is still immaculate,
but sounds and images from you
have returned and fill the pure night.
I feel their presence.
By the window, with my bare feet on the cool floor,
I know I am here
for you to be.
Our true nature is a pure, calm, clear, open, awareness. It is
the one true source of absolute happiness, love, peace, wisdom
and harmony. It is absolute existence, consciousness and bliss,
the end of suffering, the source of all creation, and the primal
state of pure energy. It is beyond time, no past or future,
non-dualistic, no here or there or you and me. It is nowhere
[here-now] so it is everywhere and contains all things,
(including time and relative reality).
We always and already have everything we need within us, it is
simply a matter of realizing it. Our true nature exists within us
now, just an absolute conscious prescence: no "I" or
"you" or anything. This doesn't mean that we are
already enlightened, but the potential is there.
"Your duty is to be, not to be this or that." - Ramana
Maharshi
"If your mind is empty it is ready for anything, it is open
to everything... and includes everything".- Shunryu Suzuki
Our true nature entails letting go of the need to know everything
and opening our hearts to the unknown, thus increasing our
capacity for love and freedom in every moment of life. Be here
now in the present eternal moment, clear, awake, accepting
everything, rejecting nothing; free of ego games. When your mind
is clear and your heart is open you are free to be fully
attentive to whatever you are doing with a sense of profound
intimacy and love and will naturally do it well. There is nothing
to be attained, sought after, clung to, grasped at or rejected.
There is no need for complex intellectual understanding just the
freshness of being in each new moment. To be in our true nature
means to die to our ego mind, our independent sense of a self,
moment after moment. We can only awaken to love, peace,
understanding, wisdom and compassion within ourselves and the
world in the present moment.
"God does not reserve the "lofty hights" for
certain souls only. On the contrary, He is willing that all shall
embrace it. But He finds few who permit Him to work such sublime
things for them."- St. John of the Cross
Awakening to the emotions means to feel them - nothing less,
nothing more. It does not require changing our feelings -
feelings change all the time on their own. Nor does it mean
changing our temperament. If we are an introvert or an extrovert,
a joyful person or a melancholic one, that will likely remain the
same. One Buddhist teacher said that he had expected awakening to
bring a "personal transformation," only to be surprised
that it was actually an "impersonal transformation."
The transformation is the opening of the heart, not a personality
change.
We fear our emotions when we haven’t seen them for what they
really are. We confuse allowing ourselves to be aware of them
with the necessity to act them out. But to include our full
selves in our journey, we need to understand how we have been
entangled by and identified with our emotions. We need to see how
the hurt and frustration of childhood, the forces of anger,
greed, pride, sexual longing and need have been conditioned in
us. Experiencing the full range of our feelings as they come and
go in our consciousness, we can begin to ask of each the
question, "Is this who I am?" If we can hold our
feelings in a spacious and fearless heart, the lonely, broken,
spiteful, confused feelings arise in a new way, transformed by
our acceptance.
- excerpt from After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
by Jack Kornfield
Are we not wasps who spend all day in a fruitless attempt to
traverse a window-pane - while the other half of the window is
wide open?
