this unborn I

…

Wake up, you poets:
let echoes end,
and voices begin.
~ Antonio Machado

…

Photo: Alan Larus
the new spiritual art of the world

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out of this singing silence
that lives the wondrous now,

that animates the ten thousand versions of this
and is never elsewhere than right here

a new, yet wholly familiar
Lifedrop
forms

it is not a person
not a being or an entity or an individual
yet all of these and all else as well

its quality is oceanic spaciousness:
this unborn I

source – the nth notes

I and life are one

Words and concepts split life into separate segments that have no reality in themselves.

We could even say that the notion “my life” is the original delusion of separateness, the source of ego.

If I and life are two, if I am separate from life, then I am separate from all things, all beings, all people.

But how could I be separate from life?  What “I” could there be apart from life, apart from Being?  It is utterly impossible.

So there is no such thing as “my life,” and I don’t have a life.

I am life.  I and life are one.  It cannot be otherwise.

So how could I lose my life?  How can I lose something that I don’t have in the first place?

How can I lose something that I Am?  It is impossible.

~ Eckhart Tolle

source – A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

nothing could be easier

The simple, most utterly obvious and unavoidable state of Beingness is the very thing we imagine to be complex, hidden, and therefore needing to be sought via an infinite array of practices.

I came down a pathway which attempted to get at this simplicity by examining deeply and interminably the mental dynamics that sabotage one’s clear seeing/experiencing of It.

Perhaps it was a worthy pursuit – it was surely interesting and entertaining – but in terms of leading me closer to ‘It,’ it was a total waste of time.  It made no difference whatsoever to simple Beingness – which silently ‘watched’ the goings-on, immovable and changeless.

Eventually it all ground to a halt – the inquiry, the seeking, the fascination and the endless construction of concepts.  And there I was, right back AS I’d begun on Day 1, Breath 1:  Beingness – simple, obvious and unavoidable.

It is surely the most amazing and incomprehensible of things that turning away from the mind machine and embracing the inescapable Light of Being is so darned difficult for most of us.

Nothing – nothing – could be easier.  It is now!  It is this!  It is here!

where could loneliness be found?

The sea is sighing this morning.  Its murmur is the continuo that cradles the voices of my sangha-souls:

- brisk yap of startled dog

- honk of ibis, strutting on stilts

- warble of magpies’ morning choir practice

- chatter of pink galas, busy on newly-greened grass

- laughter of lorikeets taking breakfast in the scarlet bottlebrush

- and beachside, the cackle of kookaburras hunting crabs.

Pink and white oleanders show off under the big gums and a huge sulphur-crested cockatoo paints a streak of white as it swoops across the park, suddenly silencing the sangha with its raucous shriek.  They listen; a second passes.  Then they all strike up again.

On my shady balcony, tubs of color:  impatiens, caladiums, violets, maidenhair ferns.  And, oh delight!  A shiny green sleepy-eyed frog has taken up residence in the water reservoir under the ferns!

I live alone and am often asked whether I feel lonely.  Where, I wonder, on this magical and miraculous Earth could loneliness be found?

source – the nth notes

may all beings be happiness

…

Happiness happened when my back was turned.
It flowered in the absence of desire or need for it.
It crept up uninvited when I stopped imagining how good it would be.

How strange that no one ever tells us this secret –

When don’t-mind mind is the default mind,
happiness is another word for Being

transparent, luminous stuff

The world is made only of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.  Let us call these, perceiving.

Perceiving is made of mind and mind is made of Consciousness.

Consciousness has no colour of its own and as the world (that is, perceiving) is only made out of this colourless Presence, it is sometimes referred to as being transparent.

Consciousness is the light that illumines all experience and as there is no other substance to our experience of the world other than this luminous Consciousness, the world is known to be luminous, made out of the light of Knowing.

Consciousness illumines the apparent world and its light is also the substance of that which it illumines and knows. In other words, the Knowing of the world and the Existence of the world are made out of the same transparent, luminous stuff.
~ Rupert Spira

source: Rupert Spira’s website

it’s all Light!

…

Joy, joy, joy!

…

the shock of shining recognition

…

you had become used to it,
the exiled state

it kept you in the company of
your countrymen
it kept you contained and
secure within shared values

but one bright moment
was all it took
and you were exiled from exile

you landed in that longed-for
Light-land
home
alone and all-One

and the shock of shining recognition
cracked open the voice you never knew
was your own

the voice that calls itself
“heart whisperer”

…

Morris Graves, Bird seeing the Light

the feminine face of awakening

…

…

Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom: The Feminine Face of Awakening
by Rita Marie Robinson, is a collection of intimate, heartfelt conversations with women spiritual teachers who live and look like ordinary people.

They have kids, husbands, jobs, and bills to pay.

What makes them extraordinary is that each woman has awakened to her true nature.

And while that sounds like enlightenment, it doesn’t look like the old stereotype of transcendence, detachment, and bliss.  Quite the contrary.

This is the feminine half of the spiritual journey—bringing it down to earth and embracing all of what it means to be human.

These real life stories show by practical example what it means to be fully awake and fully engaged, to meet the world without resistance—even and especially when it’s not easy—whether it’s death, divorce or illness.

The invitation is explicit… “If these ordinary women can be fully awake and fully human, why not me, why not you?  And why not now?”

source – extraordinarywisdom.net

Click HERE to order this book from Amazon

glad tidings of great joy

For the intrepid bunch of readers who find their way, now and then, to this blog  -  this little Christmas story is my gift to you.  Gratias!

Once upon a time in the wondrous world of Mind there lived three powerful Kings.  Their names were Desire, Aversion and Ignorance, and they each ruled over Kingdoms of the same name.  They enjoyed unchallenged rulership, and seldom warred with each other as they were too busy making sure their own realms stayed dysfunctional.

Now, although their names might elicit a response in us to judge them negatively, they were actually very Wise Men, because they intuited that they were only actors in some weird kind of dream.  They sensed they were mere puppets and they wanted to know who or what the Dream Director might be.

After many bi-hemispheric conferences and neo-cortical dialogues the three Kings came to consensus.  They had inquired deeply and had found that whatever actions they performed – whether kindly or cruel – there was a clear, luminous Awareness present that never ever changed.  They found that it wasn’t possible to separate out from this Awareness in order to observe It, and that It could only be known by falling into It and being It.

They decided to call this Awareness the Great Light in the East (because, like the sun, it makes mincemeat of darkness).

Then the Kings made a pact:  they would take a journey together – they would experiment with this Great Light.  They would follow It simply by Being It, and see what might happen.

Well as everyone knows, it didn’t take long.

The Great Light of Being brought them to a place within themselves that was quiet, humble, and unadorned by thought.  We’ll call it the Heart, although in another version of this story it’s called a stable.

And as the Kings entered this inner chamber called Heart, they found – each in their own way – their Christ Child awaiting them:  unborn, unconditioned, unsullied, unchanging, the sweetest Love they had ever known.

And the Kings hopped off their hobbyhorses and fell upon their knees.  They offered their Kingdoms to the Innocent One:  Desire, Aversion and Ignorance.  And these gifts were as priceless to the Child as Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, for to the Christ Child the true gift was the Kings’ heart-felt humility.

No one really knows what happened to the three Kings after that, but in my story they went back to their Kingdoms with new names:  Awake, Aware and Alight.  And they brought glad tidings of great joy to their Kingdoms for ever and ever after.