The Infinite Heart
A Journey Into the Teachings of 150 Great
Mystics, Masters, Poets and Saints
WEEK TWO: Thursday
How are you?
Well, good. Kind of happy and relaxed. Still some after-effects from yesterday, I guess. That really blew me away. I felt really spacious and free and just connected with everything. It was pretty amazing. And when we were done, I didn’t just go back to living in my thoughts the way I always do. I was just being. And it was okay that I didn’t really understand what was going on intellectually. Thoughts came and went, but they weren’t really important enough to bother with. It just really felt good and peaceful and tender.
Wonderful. You were resting in the Heart within the heart. A bit different than your habitual way of being.
Yeah, just a little. You definitely gave me a glimpse.
You gave yourself a glimpse. A quick glimpse of the Beloved. Did your heart begin to fall in love?
Well, let’s just call it a crush at this point. I mean, don’t go writing my obituary or anything just yet. But it was pretty amazing. It was so clear that there wasn’t any separation between me and that. And it was so completely grounded and empty and intimate and vast and loving all at the same time. But it had nothing to do with the me I always think of as me. Words can’t even touch it. But it was amazing. When you were talking about how I am that, how there’s no difference, it felt like more and more layers just kept falling away. Layers I never even knew I had. But the very center of me was still there. And it was like that center was endless.
The Center of the soul. Now you understand those words of Empedocles, “The Nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.”
Yeah! That was exactly how it felt. Of course, my mind is like, “What the hell is he talking about? Reel him in before it’s too late!” But that’s how it was. And it was like I was still here, but I wasn’t anything I had always taken myself to be. It was like my constant holding onto my mind and body and everything else all dropped away. I can see why you say all that stuff is like waves on the ocean. It was kind of like I was sinking deeper and deeper, and those waves became smaller and less dominant. And it wasn’t that I felt detached– I was really, really here. But here not as just a wave, but as this spacious, peaceful, grounded, completely open Beingness that was so much bigger than the waves. It wasn’t total annihilation at all. It was total… Life! Pure Existence. Pure Essence. Pure Being. Jeeze, I’m starting to sound like you. But those are the words that fit.
Wonderful!
Yeah, but just like Monday it started to fade last night and– well, I guess it was like I started to identify with the waves again. I was still feeling peacefulness and a kind of subtle, energizing presence, but it wasn’t anywhere near as strong. It was more like I was a wave glimpsing the vastness of the ocean beneath me. And then this morning I felt good and relaxed but it was just a shadow of yesterday. And by now it seems like it’s almost completely faded.
And any reaching to get it back will only push it farther away. It was so beautiful to be in your presence yesterday. Your thorns dropped away, your petals opened and your heart was exposed. And the Nectar that had always been there was free to effortlessly spill over into this thirsty world. Such a fragrant rose!
But I was just sitting here. Just being. I wasn’t out spreading nectar or anything. I mean, I was taking it in, not giving it out.
The closed rose must search for food outside itself. It cannot help but take. But the open one is filled with the Endless Nectar that overflows from the depths of its infinite Heart. It takes nothing from the world. And in its innocent, unguarded openness, it cannot help but spread its healing fragrance to all who care to breathe it in.
So you mean because I was just being, just open and content, melting into Beingness or Essence or whatever you want to call it, that can affect other people?
Exactly. Kabir said “When the Day came– the Day I had lived and died for– the Day that is not in any calendar– Clouds, heavy with love, showered me with wild abundance. Inside me, my soul was drenched. Around me, even the desert grew green.”
When you are resting in the Living Flow, people will consciously or unconsciously find themselves drawn towards that fresh, peaceful, spacious presence they sense around you. While their experience may be one of you giving them something they are missing, you know from your experience yesterday this is not the case. You are just being. Effortlessly. It isn’t that your resting in Effortless Beingness is directly feeding them. It’s that they can only sense the overflowing Essence you are resting in by feeling a resonance with it deep within themselves. Only Essence can sense Essence. Only a heart can feel a heart. When others catch a hint of the exquisite fragrance of Pure Essence, they cannot help but let their tight petals open ever so slightly, to breathe in more.
I guess that makes sense.
So when you are sinking into the overflowing fullness of Pure Being, you help others to let their own petals begin to open, which helps them become more aware of the endless, fragrant Nectar that has always been waiting within their inner Heart. And in this way, slowly, flower by flower, Spring comes.
That sounds good, but my spring lasted about an hour and a half.
Most of us go through the vast majority of our lives with our petals tightly closed. Even when we experience the beauty and fullness that arise when we allow them to begin to open, this doesn’t automatically eliminate the subconscious belief structures that are so invested in keeping them in a less exposed and vulnerable position.
What do you mean?
When your petals open, the boundaries of your sense of being can change dramatically, expanding from a small, confined world inside safe petal walls to being much more vast. And when they completely open, no boundaries or separation can be found at all. While this is a much more accurate experience of True Reality, it can be quite uncomfortable or even terrifying to those aspects of ourselves invested in protecting our structural boundaries. They much prefer the stagnant safety of going through life with closed petals.
Well, we gotta protect ourselves from all those thorny roses out there.
No, we don’t. A thorn in our heart doesn’t need protected against. It only causes pain. There is no inherent value in pain. But there is so much value in the open, vulnerable, undefended way of being that we can allow even during the most intense heart-piercing discomfort.
Another dynamic here is that we have deeply ingrained programs about how we need to try to arrange our lives in order to get what we want. As you experienced yesterday, there are many unintegrated parts within us that have such complex strategies for trying to get what they most deeply want that they’ve long lost touch with what that actually is.
Like thinking you want to hurt a kid when you really just want a little peace.
Not just peace. That part wanted to let go of everything and just be in Living, Boundless Peacefulness. So our parts are focusing on the first layer or two of what they think needs to happen first, and if suddenly you are resting in Peace, not using your own effort and will to get what these parts think they want, they are likely to resist. Even though you already have what they are actually working so hard to get for you.
So even when we’re just resting in that incredible space of Being, sooner or later our patterns are going to kick in again and pull us out of it?
They can only pull you out if you’re still holding on to them. But even when you’ve let them go, it can still take them some time to finish unwinding themselves. This isn’t a problem. It’s nothing to try to change. When the waves and the winds rise up into a storm, your surface self will definitely feel it. But the Perfect Peace of the Depths is never even slightly affected.
* * * * * *
So you’re saying we’re holding onto all these different parts of us?
Structure can’t hold on to Essence. So if we’re identified with the structural layers within our psyches and bodies, and identified with our minds and bodies in general, it’s because we must be holding on to them. We are a beam of Pure Awareness, focusing so much on those structures that we come to believe they are what we really are. So all of this– our minds and bodies, our mental constructs and beliefs, the pristine personality, the repressed emotions and impulses, the armor that covers them, the mask or presenting personality, the many parts we have split off from our primary personality– all of this together is our small self, the identity we consciously or subconsciously believe ourselves to be.
It sounds like our small selves are pretty screwed up.
The irony is, all these parts and patterns we’re so attached to are at the deepest level trying to help us have joy and belonging and love and security. They really just want Home. And yet, when we let go of all our attachment to the various aspects of our small self, what remains is Home. Endless joy, complete belonging, effortless love and irrevocable security. Rumi said “If you could only see your own beauty– for you are greater than the sun! Why are you withered and shriveled in this prison of dust? Why not become fresh from the gentleness of the heart’s spring? Why not laugh like a rose? Why not spread perfume?”
But the rose bracing for winter can never bloom. And that is how most of us spend our lives. Whether we are aware of it or not, we put most of our energy into growing our protective thorns, trying to create some semblance of security and stability in our fleeting lives. We think if we can only become secure and settled and successful enough then we will finally be able to bloom. But all our effort is in vain. The rose of the heart blooms only when its thorns have fallen to the ground.
So we can’t really be open until we don’t have any more defenses?
Patterns of defensiveness can still be there. Those thorns are generated in the mind. Your mind could still have such patterns even after your heart is thornless.
Then what’s a thornless heart?
One that has taken its hands off all the patterns in the mind. A thornless heart is a pure heart. A surrendered heart. An innocent heart. One that has emptied itself of all of its own agendas and false treasures, so that there is room for Pure Being to flow through it. Remember Saint John of the Cross: “The goods of God, which are beyond all measure, can only be contained in an empty and solitary heart.”
This empty heart is one in which there is no more grasping onto the small self. It no longer tries to hoard false treasures. And so it can finally relax. And as it relaxes back into its natural way of being, it begins to expand. In every direction at once. This is the free fall of the heart. And as this is happening, everything you have ever leaned on for stability and everything you have ever used to get your bearings and everything you have ever depended on to feel in control is all seen to be valueless illusion. The rug is pulled out from under you. And the falling to the ground is endless. For there is no ground. Hafiz said “Pulling out the chair beneath your mind and watching you fall upon God, what else is there for Hafiz to do that is any fun in this world?” Ahh, I love Hafiz!
But if you’re free falling and there’s no ground, it sounds like you would be falling to your death. Actually, on second thought, if there’s no bottom, I guess you could also look at that as the ultimate free fall. Like flying.
Yes, exactly. All of your old frames of reference lose their meaning. In that way, the structures on which you had built your life all fall apart. It’s a death of all that’s old. Usually we are unwilling to take that plunge. To fall backwards off the edge of the familiar, with no real comprehension of what awaits us. But since there is no ground, once we really allow that free fall and completely surrender to it, we realize we are actually flying. This is the Fall of Freedom. We are boundless Beingness, endlessly falling deeper and deeper into itself!
The price of True Life is the death of all that isn’t true. Irina Tweedie, a student of Bhai Sahib, wrote “Spiritual life is the tearing down of all castles, of all securities. For only then, and then only, can we reach the Ultimate Security.” And remember Tennyson: “The loss of personality but the only true life.”
Well, maybe he just didn’t have much of a personality.
He simply knew that the personality he wore was not who he was, and that those moments in which it tumbled to the ground around him were the most free and pure and true moments of his life, just as you experienced yesterday. The words of Plotinus may begin to make more sense now. “In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self, its divine essence, you realize this union– this identity.” Muhammad said this simply and profoundly. “True religion is surrender.” In other words, the deepest, purest spiritual life is experienced when we let go of everything we have been grasping. When we live in unceasing Releasingness. An endless free fall.
We have so much fear of annihilation when we consider letting go of who we think we are. But the direct experience of expanding into pure, structureless Being makes us realize that what we truly are is What is Left. Our True Nature is completely independent of every thing, every structure. As you glimpsed yesterday, as each deeper layer falls away, we are continually amazed. “Even that wasn’t me! I’m even more simple, more fundamental, more pure than that!” Remember Rumi: “When you finally see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, ‘This is certainly not the way we thought it was!’” When this happens, we suddenly get the Cosmic Joke.
What’s the cosmic joke? Is it the one where the Buddhist says to the hot dog vendor, “Make me one with everything”? I didn’t think so.
It’s that we already are one with everything! So completely and so unshakably that absolutely nothing could possibly ever change it! Regardless of our perceptions and our experiences, we are not the fragile sand castle we have been so frantically trying to preserve. Like Tennyson, we realize death is “an almost laughable impossibility.” It is the greatest relief to directly experience that your True Nature can never be hurt, can never be damaged, can never be destroyed. What you really are is so invincible it needs no fortress to protect it! So invincible it can be absolutely undefended, completely open and infinitely present! There’s no place it cannot reach and so it is equally in every place. No thing can stop it and so it is in everything. And everything is in it. This is why Eckhart tells us to “Become pure until you neither are nor have either this or that; then you are omnipresent and, being neither this nor that, are all things.”
This is the Cosmic Joke. You have worked so hard to protect and maintain the sand castle of your identity, and then, through some mysterious gift of Grace, you finally let go of the continuous effort this requires and just allow it to crumble to pieces, aware that this could be your death. And as more and more sand falls to the ground, you wonder when you will fall with it. You wonder which part of the castle is holding your consciousness. Until you have watched every last grain of sand tumble to the ground. And you are still there! Completely unscathed! Completely untouched!
Completely freaked out.
Perhaps. But you are also incredibly relieved. When you finally realize you have spent your entire life fervently trying to defend and reinforce and support an identity that had no reality whatsoever outside your own mind, you cannot help but laugh. You cannot help but feel the greatest relief. Simone Weil wrote “If we find fullness of joy in the thought that God exists, we should find the same fullness in the knowledge that we ourselves do not exist, for it is the same thought.” Or as the early twentieth century Zen writer, Terence Gray, a.k.a. Wei Wu Wei, put it, “Why are you unhappy? Because ninety-nine point nine percent of everything you think and of everything you do is for yourself. And there isn’t one.”
There isn’t a self?
There is certainly a sense of identity. A self image. But it has no real substance. The body and mind and personality do exist, as much as anything in the world of form. They are complex patterns of physical and energetic structures. A beam of Pure Awareness projects its awareness onto them and comes to believe they are what it is. And yet, each of those structures can fall away, one at a time or all at once, and that Prime Consciousness is untouched. So Pure Awareness exists and the systems and structures it becomes identified with exist. But the self as a conscious entity, comprised of the sum total of these structures, that self is only a mental construct, with no foundation in reality. In that sense, there is no self. The fourteenth century mystic, Saint Catherine of Siena, said “In self knowledge, then, thou wilt humble thyself, and see that, in thyself, thou dost not even exist.” And the Buddha said “Whatever is originated will be dissolved again. All worry about the self is vain; the ego is like a mirage, and all the tribulations that touch it will pass away. They will vanish as a nightmare vanishes when a sleeper awakes.”
So basically, until we become Self realized, we have a severe case of mistaken identity.
Exactly. As long as you believe you have an identity, you are mistaken.
Hold on though. You’re saying that when your identity crumbles, you’re still around, which I guess is what I had a little taste of yesterday. But you said before that you can’t reach the goal of being Self realized until there isn’t anyone there to reach it. They sound like a contradiction.
You are what remains when the imagined identity that was hoping to reach any goal is let go of. When all grasping and effort is surrendered, when all structure is dis-identified with, then you experience yourself as Pure Awareness, Pure Structurelessness. All of your self concepts have been shattered. You aren’t anything you had thought you were. You aren’t anything at all. There is no imagined small self left to want to reach the Goal. And yet, you are. Boundless, limitless Being. Infinite Oneness. No thing is separate from this Oneness that you are. No thing is other than it. All duality is one with the nonduality of Essence. All waves are Ocean. Being one with that Infinite Oneness, you want nothing. Wanting nothing, you stop all effort. Stopping all effort, you let go of everything. Empty of everything, you become it.
Completely lost, you fake it and nod.
The eleventh century Sufi, Ansari of Herat, said it more simply than I can. “Know that when you learn to lose yourself, you will reach the Beloved. There is no other secret to be learned, and more than this is not known to me.” And remember the words of Angelus Silesius: “God whose love and joy are present everywhere, can’t come to visit you unless you aren’t there.” And Shankara said “Liberation cannot be achieved except by the perception of the identity of the individual spirit with the universal Spirit.” This identification is not something you can grab on to. It is What Is Left when all grasping and all identifying is finally finished. Remember Swami Vidyaranya: “How shall I grasp it? Do not grasp it. That which remains when there is no more grasping is the Self.”
* * * * * *
I’m getting this image of a tight fist, and that’s like what we usually are, how we live, all we know. If we would let it open, we would still have all the same structures that made the fist. But now everything’s spread out more, so there’s a whole lot more room. The closed walls open and then we experience the same old structures in a looser way, and at the same time there’s this new sense of boundless space. Does that make any sense?
Yes.
Then could you explain it to me?
All your life you thought you were a unique wave, different from all other waves. Then your self concepts fall away and you realize your true identity, the endless Ocean. You experience dissolving into the Ocean, no longer being limited to the wave you thought you were. But the wave itself remains. You still have a body, you still have a mind, you still have a personality. They each still have their own gifts and faults, their own strengths and weaknesses, their own unique qualities and predispositions. While you experience yourself to be limitless Awareness, Infinite Beingness, you are also aware of the body and mind and personality on which your Ray of Awareness is focused. You are intimately connected to those structures. They are the vehicles that allow you to experience existence in this world. They are what allow Pure Awareness to experience created reality. We have been given the honor, the privilege, to be the vehicles through which the Creator can know the created, the Source can know structure. We are the Eyes of Essence.
Only the waves of the ocean can see the stars. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it’s in the same ballpark as “Only the center of the hurricane can see the sun.” Which, incidentally, is the same ball park where that hot dog vendor makes you one with everything.
In any case, when you see how things really are, these structures through which you experience this world are no longer confused with your Real Self.
So you’re saying the body is kind of like a car you drive around. When you first get a car, you have to learn where the controls are, how it responds, how to make it do what you want, how to steer with your knees while you’re downing a burger and fries, that kind of thing. But after you’ve had it for a while, it becomes like an extension of yourself. You control it effortlessly. Automatically. It does what you need it to do and goes where you want it to go, but you always know it isn’t you.
And like a car, you may have a great deal of appreciation for it and you may make it a priority to take as good care of it as possible. But you know eventually it will break down beyond repair and cease to function. So there may be a sense of sadness and loss at no longer having a way to exist in this marvelous world. And at knowing that this vehicle that served you so long and so well is gone. But you are absolutely clear that this vehicle isn’t you, and that its inevitable death will not affect what you truly are.
Shankara said “The knower of the Atman does not identify himself with this body. He rests within it, as if within a carriage.”
Hey, that’s basically what I said. Me and Shankara are like totally soul buddies.
You chose a good buddy. He founded Advaita Vedanta, a tradition that holds everything in reality is always one with the One. He said “He who has learned to see the one Reality everywhere, he is my master– whether he is a Brahmin or an Untouchable.”
I was just thinking the exact same thing myself. I just didn’t want to outshine you so I kept it to myself.
So even though your mind and personality still exist when you let go of your identification with them, many of your psychological structures dissolve away. Your armor, your repressed impulses and emotions, your unresolved issues, your false beliefs about yourself and the world, and other mental constructs begin to disintegrate. As this happens, your body, which had been holding repressed emotions and energy and impulses and so forth, now begins to become much more relaxed and open. It’s no longer the battle ground for a constant inner war between expression and suppression, authenticity and pretension. And the many dams that had been stopping the flow of your life stream begin melting away. The life force that had been trapped in stagnant pools of repressed energy and in the dams that held them now flows much more freely and powerfully. Your mind, which had been fragmented and unfocused, now can focus much more fully on any one thing, effortlessly penetrating into its depths with laser sharpness, allowing profound insights to emerge.
So it’s like your car had all this extra baggage tied to the top of it that was keeping it from working very well and having much power, and then all that is removed and suddenly it’s light and powerful and handles better. And instead of spending all your time preoccupied with the baggage, like making sure it isn’t falling off and that you don’t do anything that throws it off balance, you can focus all your attention on what’s in front of you and most important at the moment. Your burger and fries.
A great burden has been lifted. And with the dissolution of most of these psychological structures, the pristine personality is again exposed. Your personality is once again authentic, undefended, open hearted, joyful, compassionate and centered in present experience rather than distant thoughts. So you do not become some stoic robot lacking character and uniqueness. You are not a lifeless zombie. And you are not perfect. Your pristine personality has its own predispositions and tendencies and idiosyncrasies based on genetics and personality development and so forth. So that even though you experience yourself to be limitless Being, you relate and interact in the world through a unique and imperfect mind and body, with which you are intimately connected.
Now, this pristine personality may still have a wide variety of emotions passing through it. But when you allow an emotion to fully arise, and completely experience it, it dissolves away without a problem. So when you are Self realized, anger and sadness and irritation and so forth may still come and go, but they are fully allowed, and are not a problem. And when you are experiencing unpleasant sensations, whether physical or emotional, you are not knocked off balance by it. You are still resting in the Endless Beingness that you are. Sensations and emotions are passing surface waves that leave the Deep Living Water unchanged.
So you mean if you’re mad you have a temper tantrum and then move on?
This is an important point. You completely allow your emotions to be present, just as they are. You warmly allow and accept them to fully be here. This doesn’t mean you necessarily express them or release them physically. You may do that at times, but you are more likely to simply fully experience the so called negative emotions that arise within yourself without doing anything with them or to them. Without using effort to pull them closer or to push them away. Without trying to make them bigger or smaller. Without trying to resolve them. Without any effort at all. There is plenty of room within you to just kindly allow those clouds to form and dissolve on their own, without the slightest exertion on your part to either suppress or express. When you allow your accepting awareness to gently fall completely into the center of any emotion or sensation or experience, layer after layer dissolves away until the Pure Center is unveiled. No matter where on the surface you start, if you allow your awareness to ever so gently melt deeply enough through the layers, you will always uncover the same Core.
So you could fully experience incredible pain without reacting to it?
It’s fine to react, and yet as you continue to open, even very intense waves of emotions can flow through without the necessity of physical expression. But when you are just beginning to open, the ice starts to melt, the floods come, and the currents can seem much bigger and more powerful than you are. And they may knock you off your feet. By the way, it’s easy to get sidetracked by the intensity of roaring emotional waves. You feel so alive, and you think all that emotional release must mean you’re really getting clearer. So you might unconsciously choose to stay on the emotional level, instead of letting yourself naturally sink into the Peaceful Stillness waiting underneath. As long as you are looking for an emotional wave to ride, there will always be one waiting.
Question. Since self realized people are okay with their body dying, do they ever have any fear? If their parachute doesn’t open, do they just think, “Wow, in a few seconds, I’m really going to have an interesting experience!” I mean, that’s an “Oh shit!” moment if there ever was one.
After Self realization, the body’s survival instincts may still remain very much in tact. Trillions of cells are all working together for the survival of this remarkable organism. They don’t all suddenly become complacent just because you realize you are not the body. Even though your Pure Awareness doesn’t fear the inevitable death of its vehicle, if there is a loud noise, your body may jump. If you are standing on the edge of a cliff, your heart may pound. If you are being attacked by a robber, you are likely to instinctively fight back. If your body is wounded, it will do all it can to heal itself.
And if you’re seconds away from merging with the rapidly approaching ground?
Every mind stream is different. There is not one reaction all would have. While deep down you would have acceptance of death, your body-mind might be at peace or might be filled with fear.
So you might still feel scared sometimes? This isn’t how I pictured being Self realized.
As we realize our True Self, we do not become less human, but more deeply, more maturely, and more tenderly human than we have ever been before. Until it has happened to us, we tend to have all sorts of misconceptions of what it must be like. We might imagine omniscient, omnipotent, saintly people with great mystical powers.
You mean that doesn’t come with the job?
Some people do have abilities such as being very intuitive, or being a conduit for higher levels of energy. Some are naturally gifted, others develop them through practices, and still others find them arising spontaneously as the veils begin to thin. But such abilities have no direct correlation whatsoever with being Self realized. And in fact, those who stumble upon them during their spiritual unfolding can actually be hindered by them. Such gifts can become a false peak that create a distorted sense of arrival, and perhaps lead them to become intoxicated with their magic tricks and with the adoration of others.
The sixteenth century priest, Saint Francis de Sales, said “It is possible to receive such gifts and yet to be in mortal sin, nor are they necessary to salvation.” And Ansari of Herat said ” Can you walk on water? You have done no better than a straw. Can you fly in the air? You have done no better than a blue bottle. Conquer you heart; then you may become somebody.”
That reminds me of some channelers I checked out a few years ago. It’s like, even if someone seems to really be saying something wise, and even if they really are honestly having the experience of just letting something else speak through them, that still doesn’t mean that what is coming through is a hundred percent correct. They could be distorting it some unconsciously, and the source that it’s coming from, whatever that is, might not be flawless in the first place.
Exactly. The spontaneous expression of words that come from somewhere beyond the conscious mind is an ancient phenomenon. As is the belief that these words are coming from a greater, wiser, perhaps infallible being. Saint John of the Cross said “I am really terrified by what passes among us in these days. Anyone who has barely begun to meditate, if he becomes conscious of words of this kind during his self-recollection, pronounces them forthwith to be the work of God.”
That’s wild this stuff was even going on back then. That’s what Shankara was trying to tell me a minute ago but I didn’t believe him.
The bottom line is that the source of the teaching isn’t as relevant as whether or not it resonates deep inside you. Whether it comes from someone channeling, someone’s own immediate experience, an ancient scripture, a respected teacher or even a folk song, the question is, deep down does it ring true for you?
A folk song?
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Now that’s Truth.
* * * * * *
Now, another common misconception is that everyone who is Self realized has the same saintly, stoic lifestyle and the same interests and beliefs. In fact, there are as many ways to live an awakened life as there are people to become awakened.
I can see how each person would have a different personality and from that different interests and lifestyles, but what do you mean different beliefs?
The mind is imperfect. Whenever you reduce a direct experience or insight into a mental representation of it, there is the danger of losing something in the translation. Actually, it’s not just a danger, it’s a certainty. So you will find that different Self realized people will have different opinions and beliefs about some aspects of our Essential Nature and how to realize it. Now some of these are just different ways of describing the same thing.
Like saying Essence can be experienced as both the Light and the Void.
Right. Two of the many ways it can be perceived are as a magnificent Clear Light, like an infinite sun, and as a beautiful, Shimmering Darkness, like the night sky.
So when you think about it, everyone is really a Shining Night in armor.
Yes, exactly! There is but one Face behind every mask! That Face is both the Infinite Light of Living Flow and the Unmoving Stillness of the Uncreated Absolute. The masks seem so real, so convincing. But when we gaze with the heart, we can’t help but recognize our Beloved! Everywhere we look! If the Infinite Heart is truly Infinite, there is no place it is not Fully Present.
But before you take another trip to Bliss Land, you’re saying that sometimes different beliefs are just a matter of semantics.
Right. The direct experience of non-dual Awareness creates many paradoxes for the mind. In trying to describe it from various perspectives, using the heavy clumsiness of words, we cannot help but contradict ourselves. Essence can be experienced as both a Light and a Void. And it is preposterous to believe it is either. No concepts can possibly describe that which is absolutely inconceivable. How foolish to even try! And yet, once you have rested upon the Breast of Being, and melted into its infinite Love and Completeness, you are most happy to be a fool for your Beloved.
The Breast of Being?
When we let ourselves completely fall apart, and simply rest in What Is, without the slightest grasping or pushing or holding ourselves together, there is an effortless flow of the Sweetest Love. The Purest Nectar. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus sees some mothers nursing their babies and says, “These infants being suckled are like those who enter into the Kingdom.” Completely trusting. Completely vulnerable. Completely open. Completely surrendered. Completely nurtured. Completely Home. Listen to the book of Psalms: “My mind is not noisy with desires, and my heart has satisfied its longing. I do not care about religion or anything that is not You. I have soothed and quieted my soul, like a child at its mother’s breast. My soul is as peaceful as a child sleeping in its mother’s arms.”
Now then, while some beliefs are just different ways of communicating the same truth, there are other beliefs about Essence and how to uncover it, about the world, and about yourself that are based on your own predispositions and your own unique interpretation of your experiences, as well as on the beliefs of your particular spiritual path and culture.
For instance?
Some traditions teach it is nearly impossible to awaken without a teacher to serve as a vessel through which the Flow of Pure Presence awakens your own True Nature. And a student who becomes Self realized in that path is likely to maintain that belief. Other paths directly contradict this, as do some who have awakened with no path. Also, some who are Self realized believe in predestination, some don’t. Some believe in ongoing journeys after death, and some believe we immediately merge back into the Source. Those who follow some ascetic traditions say you must sacrifice many of life’s pleasures, including sexual activity, in order to become Self realized. While followers of some Tantric paths may even integrate sexual activity into some of their practices.
Tough choice. I mean, if both paths end up at the same place anyway, my vote’s for the scenic route. Might as well enjoy the journey. I believe it was Robert Frost who wrote “I came to a fork in the road and I picked it up and had some pie.”
Actually, I’m not familiar with that version.
Well, maybe you should read a little more.
I’ll take that under advisement. Yes, for some the scenic route may be a perfect choice. But for others, the scenery is so seductive they forget about their journey and decide to stay. For them a more direct route may be in order.
“I came to a fork in the road and I thought it faster just to fly.”
I’m not sure Frost’s poetry really needs to be improved on.
Yeah, I guess if he were alive to hear this, well, he’d probably be really, really old.
Here’s my favorite of his lines: “We dance round a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”
That would be really beautiful if I only knew what it meant. How are you supposed to understand poetry when they cram a bunch of symbolism into it? Poetry should be short, sharp and simple. Like “I think that I shall never see such a large flea collar on such a small flea.” Now that’s good poetry.
The collar symbolizes how we enslave ourselves, by our own efforts to be protected from that which we already are. And yet, the collar is actually large enough that we are not truly enslaved. It will fall off the moment we are truly willing to live life unprotected, vulnerable, and free. Rumi said “Take from your neck the world’s gold collar. Receive with no protection the blows God sends.”
I don’t like you anymore.
So, to continue, we live in a time when so many different paths are becoming accessible that those who feel the need for one can find one with which they deeply resonate. Which, by the way, is not necessarily the same as finding the one they enjoy the most.
There’s always a catch. What do you mean “those who feel the need for a path”? We don’t have to follow one? We can just take a helicopter to the mountain top or something? Too bad both of mine got burned in pyro-kittie fire.
That’s an important question. I want to let you in on a little known secret about spiritual paths. Actually, this might be a good place to stop for today.
I think that I shall have to wait until our next appointed date. But that’s all right. I won’t fight. There’s no need to be irate.
Don’t quit your day job.
Hey, you’re not exactly the greatest poet who ever lived, Mr. “Twinkle, twinkle, the stars are overrated”.
Yes, the words of themselves sounded completely ridiculous.
Which is why I was ridiculing them.
But the space from which the impulse to speak them came, that space is Pure Poetry itself. And even though the heaviness of words can never touch it, sometimes there is the irresistible impulse to foolishly try. I love being a true fool.
So you’re admitting you sounded like a fool? That takes the fun out of ridiculing you.
For years I was a fool desperately running around after fool’s gold. Pushing and pulling my way through life. Now I am a fool endlessly resting in the tender arms of my Beloved, being carried through life. I’m like an ever-resting puppet, completely trusting of its master. Saint Paul said “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives through me.” And Eckhart wrote “Above all, claim nothing for yourself. Relax and let God operate you and do what he will with you.” I am so endlessly grateful to be this kind of fool! Always at the mercy of the Master’s hand. Oh Master, move the strings of my life anyway you wish! No matter how it may look. No matter how it may feel. No matter the cost. All it could ever cost is absolutely everything that was never Real!
To let go of all I’m holding
To let go and be free
To release all my grasping
Just to fall endlessly
To be the eyes of Essence
To be the arms of Love
To rest in the Heart of Being
This Endless Moment always enough
To give this life in service
To live each breath for You
To trust enough to open
To finally live the Truth!
Divine, Mother Divine
Divine, Mother Divine
I surrender, I resign
I am Yours, Mother Divine
I am Yours, I am Yours, Mother Divine!