The Virgin Mary..
For some~~
The Advent season brings us
To the story of Mary with her
Fears and misgivings after
Angelic conversations..
Her status as a virgin pointed
To an angelic mistake..does not
A conception require separation..?
A new question:
Might there be inner Birth
Recognizing Virginity
Appearing as separation...?
― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Love in relationship..
Is our common context..
And we find examples of
What seems as genuine love
Between and among..
But let's ask: can this love
Cover and smother..and
Steal our knowing of
Freedom..as our birthright..?
~~CC
It appears that most prayers
Assume a separation..separation of
God and of others..even when a
Unity is accepted through intellect..
Read or listen to most prayers and
Find the gaps and spaces..
The question for our time is how
Might this assumption be uprooted..?
Most simply..by recognition of That
In which prayers are rooted..which
Is a Presence never absent..still...
Swami Sarvapriyananda: "I'm one with you absolutely, I don't disagree one bit. But we must admit there's a vast number of people in this world who would not want to go so far, who would want to hold on to their individuality, and have God as an 'other', finding a distinction between God's being and our being, and set up a loving but dualistic relationship based on faith, and worshipping God. So where would you stand on this? Ultimately one has to come to the realization that 'I am Brahman', 'I am the infinite', for enlightenment and liberation."
Rupert Spira: "The dualistic devotion towards God is valuable. It weakens the ego. But it does not uproot the ego. In fact, for the ego to be truly uprooted - it cannot be uprooted because it doesn't really exist as such - but for the illusion of separation to be dissolved, this dualistic relationship between self and other (whoever that other is; whether it's a person or a God) must come to an end. Even from the point of view that the world is created by or emerges out of this magnificent, infinite God at a seeming distance from ourself, if the world is a creation of that and we as individuals are a creation of the world, then whatever the essence of the world is - which is God - must be the essence of what we are. So even if one follows the common dualistic idea all the way, one must inevitably at the end come to the realization that the being that I am is a localization of the only being there is. If we go deeply into the dualistic approach, there is only room for one being, there is only room for God's being. Sooner or later one must come to the realization that there is no self in me other than God's being. That to me is true devotion to God."
LIFE being life..
Regrets in this life
Transport us outward
And mark a duration
To some remembered place..
Yet there is a tension
Accompanying
To turn us once more with
A relieving recognition:
LIFE being life...
She was getting old, she wrote me, and she was filled with regret that she had spent decades at satsangs and retreats and watching videos and reading books about enlightenment. She said she felt that her life had passed her by and she had nothing to show for it.
I told her that was her life, every smile and hug she shared with everyone else at every talk and every retreat, seeker and sage alike, simply human animals singing and talking and meditating and doing yoga and laughing and crying and sleeping and breaking bread together; her life was in every beautiful word that touched her, and that feeling of longing the words evoked was none other than her own love and beauty; her life was there in all the videos that perplexed her and annoyed her and also filled her with wonder and awe.
I told her there is no this to get, no journey to nowhere, and your life was never your own, it never passed you by, it is you, it is all and everything and no thing at all. No one has ever had more, known more, or felt more than you do right now in this apparent instant, and that is as enlightened as any of us are ever going to get. This is your life, and it is love, and it is not even that, yet it is always so beautifully and wonderfully and mysteriously more than enough.
~~Miranda Warren
A Messy Advent..
For some~~
It is time for Advent
That special season of waiting
For a birth in a storied event..
Incarnation it is called..with a
Child arriving to save us from
Sins construed as so messy..
Re-contemplating that
Child.. recalling our own
Innocence..before our many
Journeys to far places
Seeking in messiness
Our illusive Innocence..
Until..with joyful Surprise
A discovery..at journey's end:
From our Innocence
We have never departed...!
Matthew 18: 2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
Thankful Thursday..
In this year of
Virus and chaos
We have arrived at
This Thursday for Thanks..
The outward turn
Of daily attention
Has immersed us and
Grayed inner vision..
So perhaps this Thursday
We might pause to reveal
Our inner Light of
Thankful Thursday...
In the envelope of time
Reincarnation appears
Soothing as we dwell in
The seeming reality of the
Day..a settling into this
Plenitude of time..if not now
Another lifetime will do..
The lonely self grasps this
Logical story to fill a gap..
That is..until time is found
Crumbling in the explosion
Of a Birdsong...
Question: What do you think happens when the physical body dies? Reincarnation?
Krishnamurti: The whole of Asia believes in reincarnation, that there is such a thing as the soul, as the self, which is being constantly made perfect though time. Which means repeated births. If one believes in that, that you will be born next life in a better condition in order to become more and more perfect, until you reach whatever you reach, it implies that you must behave rightly now. If you believe in reincarnation, what is important is what your conduct is now, how you live now, what kind of person you are now, because if you are brutal, if you are violent, if you are ugly, you are going to continue that same thing next life. But most people who believe in this don’t care two pins how they live now – it is just a theory to them. It gives them a kind of comfort because they don’t know what death is, and at least they have some belief.
So there is this whole theory or belief in reincarnation, in the perfection of a human mind growing through time becoming perfect. And you say, ‘What do you believe?’ I say I don’t believe in anything. Now wait a minute, it is not agnostic. I see a different way of living. That is, if you are interested in it, death is something extraordinary, as love, not something to be afraid of. And to find out what it means, one must die every day. To die to every event, every pain, every ambition, to die to all that you have cherished as important. Otherwise you are just living in the past, as most people are. Or rather, not living in the past – they are the past. So can one die to yesterday, to everything? Not just to one particular form of pain or one particular form of fear or pleasure, but the feeling of emptying the mind of all the problems of yesterday.
Interview with Wilfred Thomas at Brockwood Park, 5 October 1970
Why not a dream..??
Forms of faces by the
AI Artist ensconced in the
Dreaming Mind
We all are..
Do these people look real to you..??
Violence..
If a basic separation is assumed
To be fundamental..then.. until
An awakening..discovering
Separation as illusion..
We might expect that
Doing and moving may wreak
Violence in large and small ways..
Amazon review:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R1OCNJTYBYXCFV/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
It appears this will be one more in the string of "5" ratings for this book! Dr. Robin Starbuck has provided a modern commentary on the convergence of quantum physics, spirituality, and healing. Yet, it is much more than a commentary..she is speaking to all of us about the possibility of healing from a new understanding--and more importantly, an experience--of who we are. Really! Her own experiences of physical illnesses are the foundation for her discoveries and her writing. A significant uniqueness of the book is Dr. Robin's use of scriptural (primarily New Testament) language as a framework for her entry into the vastness of the quantum and spiritual worlds. She uses religious language despite her dislike for religion! This book is one from which the Christian religion might derive much benefit, noting that her usage of words is likely closer to original holistic meanings. Her book is a deeply personal portrayal of her life of discovery and recognition. The writing is informal, and should be a comfort to many who appreciate her manner of speaking. Some might claim that there is too many quotes from her sources (perhaps there are) but the quotes are stepping stones on her path to discovery of what the world is looking for: an immediate knowing of the Peace and Joy which are features of our Real Identity. Take a look..!!
A grammar lesson..
Start with a polarity
Those many dualities
We have believed are
Separation's truth..
Recognize then the
Play of Subject / object..
As the object wishes to
Stand alone..the Subject
Expresses the Truth of
Oneness: dissolving
Separation so that
At last we recognize
Beauty and Truth:
Subject being object...
Retreat..
A retreat is available
When we are right busy
Riding our range..
This retreat..when
Frequently visited becomes
Shorter and shorter..leading
To recognition of Retreat
As our new Name..
We are ReNewed
Riding a new Range...
Journeys..
Direct and Indirect
Portrayed as choices sometimes..
But are they choices..?
The direct journey has no
Geography or duration..and
Those arriving tell the joke:
There is no journey..!
The indirect journey is
Composed of stops and starts
Searching for what might be
Directly discovered...
Naming..
Proclaims separation..!
That's it..
We give everything a name, that’s the problem. We say this is cancer, this is poverty, this is an earthquake, this is a million dollars, this is a new home, this is a new car, this is a war, this is a dog, this is a cat. We have names for everything. What if we forgot about those names, and we stopped seeing things as something? What if we just observed things, watched things without giving them a name, without coming to a conclusion? What do you think would happen? You would transcend everything. Whatever you’re no longer attached to, gives way. Whatever you’re no longer holding on to, no longer holds on to you. And as you let go of your opinions toward person, place and things, you find that you’re growing, you’re evolving. You’re beginning to become something that is ineffable, something that cannot be explained, something that’s so wonderful, you never dreamed that something like this existed. Yet it does.
Robert Adams
Democracy..
This hidden diamond
In our culture..is
Buried by layers of
Distrustful hedging..
Constitutions and governments
Are molded with trappings to
Protect from a fearful notion..
History gains glimpses..yet
The diamond hides
Until one day
(Right Now for some..)
The diamond's gift is
Freedom exposed...!
“Unlike seeking, which is result-oriented and rooted in a sense of dissatisfaction and incompleteness, this kind of meditative inquiry is rooted in curiosity, interest and love. Much as a lover explores the beloved, this nondual, nonconceptual inquiry is an act of love and devotion. Much as a child explores the world with open curiosity and wonder, this kind of inquiry is a form of play and self-discovery.”
― Joan Tollifson, Nothing to Grasp
There is no Charles
There is no (insert your name)..
In non-dual discourse
We hear these assertions..
Makes no sense
To the ordinary Joe..
But..perhaps Joe knows
There is no Joe..!
This is the revolution
Underway..in many
Quiet corners of our
Globe..we are stimulated
In our shadows..to awaken
To Who we are...
November wind..
A windy walk
With autumn leaves
Swirling and skittering
A pavement dance..
Sizes and shapes are
Their conditioning
Which when blown
Determines their steps..
What choices..?
Are we like leaves in
November wind
Or..Not...?
Hierarchy..?
The belief in separation
Creates hierarchies..
Considered necessary for
Measured accomplishment..
Seems so..but let's inquire..
Without that weighty belief
Might accomplishment simply
Happen..with appearances of
Separation..creating in full
Recognition of Freedom...?
When there is no sense of hierarchy, of there being someone special who has
something that other people do not have, then there is a natural freedom and
joy that arises out of that openness... Suddenly the exposure of the myth of
the apparent importance of "my story," the significance of right and wrong
and the justification of moral and ethical behavior, simply unravels.
~~Tony Parsons (this freedom)
Election..
The vote is in
One side pointed to division
The other unity..
The expression of unity
Arrived this morning..
Jubilation in the streets
And residues of division
These are the poles
Of conventional life..
Awaiting the time
When all expressions
Are of One...
“Do not search now for the answers which cannot be given you because you could not live them. It is a matter of living everything. Live the questions now.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Everything must be carried to term before it is born. To let every impression and the germ of every feeling come to completion inside, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, in what is unattainable to one’s own intellect, and to wait with deep humility and patience for the hour when a new clarity is delivered.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“And your doubt may become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become critical. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perplexed and embarrassed perhaps, or perhaps rebellious. But don’t give in, insist on arguments and act this way, watchful and consistent, every single time, and the day will arrive when from a destroyer it will become one of your best workers—perhaps the cleverest of all that are building at your life.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet
“Nobody can advise and help you, nobody. There is only one single means. Go inside yourself. Discover the motive that bids you write; examine whether it sends its roots down to the deepest places of your heart, confess to yourself whether you would have to die if writing were denied you. This before all: ask yourself in the quietest hour”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“I would finally just like to advise you to grow through your development quietly and seriously; you can interrupt it in no more violent manner than by looking outwards, and expecting answer from outside to questions which perhaps only your innermost feeling in your most silent hour can answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Bodily delight is a sense experience, just like pure seeing or the pure feeling with which a lovely fruit fills the tongue; it is a great boundless experience which is given us, a knowing of the world, the fullness and the splendour of all knowing. Our acceptance of it is not bad; what is bad is that almost all men misuse and squander this experience, and apply it as a stimulus to the weary places of their life, a dissipation instead of a rallying for the heights. Mankind have turned eating, too, into something else: want on the one hand, and superfluity on the other, have dulled the clarity of this need, and all those deep, simple necessities by which life renews itself have become similarly dull.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Things are not as easy to understand and say as we might prefer to believe; most events are inexpressible, happening in a space where no word has ever set foot, and most inexpressible of all are works of art, mysterious existences, whose life continues as ours passes away.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out the with noise.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“If you hold to Nature, to the simplicity that is in her, to the small detail that scarcely one man sees, which can so unexpectedly grow into something great and boundless; if you have this love for insignificant things and seek, simply as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems to be poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory, not perhaps in the understanding, which lags wondering behind, but in your innermost consciousness, wakefulness and knowing.”
― Ranier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“It is perhaps no use now to reply to your actual words; for what I could say about your disposition to doubt or about your inability to bring your outer and inner life into harmony, or about anything else that oppresses you—: it is always what I have said before: always the wish that you might be able to find patience enough in yourself to endure, and single-heartedness enough to believe; that you might win increasing trust in what is difficult, and in your solitude among other people. And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, at all events.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Attempt to raise the sunken sensations of this distant past; your self will become the stronger for it, your loneliness will open up and become a twilit dwelling in which the noise other people make is only heard far off. And if from this turn inwards, from this submersion in your own world, there come verses, then it will not occur to you to ask anyone whether they are good verses. Nor will you attempt to interest magazines in these bits of work: for in them you will see your beloved natural possessions, a piece, and a voice, of your life.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“If your everyday life seems to lack material, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to summon up its riches, for there is no lack for him who creates and no poor, trivial place.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Things are not as easy to understand or express as we are mostly
led to believe; most of what happens cannot be put into words
and takes place in a realm which no word has ever entered.”
―
“We are solitary. We may delude ourselves and act as though this were not so. That is all.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet
“And to speak of solitude again, it becomes clearer and clearer that fundamentally this is nothing that one can choose or refrain from. We are solitary. We can delude ourselves about this and act as if it were not true. That is all. But how much better it is to recognize that we are alone; yes, even to begin from this realization. It will, of course, make us dizzy; for all points that our eyes used to rest on are taken away from us, there is no longer anything near us, and everything far away is infinitely far.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Don't you see how everything that happens is always a beginning again, and could it not be His beginning, given that beginnings are in themselves always so beautiful?”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Your inmost happening is worth your whole love, that is what you must somehow work at, and not lose too much time and too much courage in explaining”
― Letters to a Young Poet
“It must be immense, this silence, in which sounds and movements have room”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Silence and language..
In the ancient languages one notices that the birth of words from silence was not taken for granted but was considered an event of sufficient importance to require a pause in the flow of language before the arrival of the next word. Words were constantly being interrupted by silence. As a river being born receives at every moment waters from different springs, in like manner after every word a new spring of silence flowed into the stream of the sentence.
In the ancient languages the word was merely an interruption of the silence. Every word was rimmed around with silence. It was this surrounding rim of silence that gave it its individual shape, and kept it separate and distinct from all other words, fenced off from them with its individuality guarded by the silence. If there is no silence between words they lose their individual shape and personality. Instead of being persons they become an undifferentiated mass.
In the ancient languages there was a silence in the interval between two words. The language breathed silence, spoke silence, into the great silence from which it came."
- Max Picard (1888 - 1965)
Waiting..
Is low grade suffering
As now with the voting..
But it is a chance to
Do that inquiry..
And discover that
Place without place..
Where the counting
Shapes without changing
Our Placement of Peace...
