Category: meditation

Toy Box World

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“We are in the darkness; nameless things with no memory—no knowledge of what went before, no understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

…

We live in a barrel, a dark depository where are kept the counterfeit, make-believe pieces of plaster and cloth, wrought in a distorted image of human life. But this added, hopeful note: perhaps they are unloved only for the moment. In the arms of children, there can be nothing but love. A clown, a tramp, a bagpipe player, a ballet dancer, and a Major. Tonight’s cast of players on the odd stage—known as—The Twilight Zone.” – Rod Serling

Journeys in Bangalore

Sharing some pictures and videos from my recent Bangalore India walkabout. Even a pic of me in there if you have been curious. It’s New Years here! Much thanks to Viktor my trusted guide. We talked of life, family, spirit, and  country, he was the best part of the trip!

Hari Om Tat Sat
Hari Om Tat Sat
Hari Om Tat Sat

Local New Years festival. Flower chariots.
Viktor!
Brahma
Ghandi statue
Shiva
Lil ole Me after my offering to Brahma
Lord Ganesh
Ganesh is fresh!

Fear or Destiny

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Sometimes you just have to squeeze your butt cheeks together,  yell “F*ck it!” and jump or yell whatever you feel is appropriate. I think we all get that chance in our lives at least once to do this when it matters the most.

Did you jump when it came time?

Will you?

No telling how many chances you will have. I will do what is asked and required of me and then I will get out of the way.

That’s what a good Taoist should do. Though, I’m not a Taoist, but that is sound advice to keep your ego in check when you need to turn your mind off…and jump.

I’m not anything and I am everything I found.

Literally in both cases. That is all awakening is meant to do in the end. Help you accept you are part of something much larger than yourself. Then you get dissolve like a wisp of air.

Fun.

Into what, well, take your pick of opinions or go look for yourself. A wisp of air can change the destiny of the Universe as the wings of a butterfly.

How wonderful to learn and feel that. I wish all could. They will in the end. They have to. Things will be balanced, all opposites unified. Who could hold one back who knew truly what they are and what their destiny is as a Human? Has someone told you who you are or did you go and find out? Because that is the most important part of this game.

You have to be what you are. When in doubt, go with the flow and just act naturally.

Awakening to your part of the whole allows you to act like a real Human irregardless of your identity, your desires or even your safety and well being at the right moments in life.

You have to be ready for that one moment sometimes!

You may only get one shot in your life. Everything tries to prevent you maybe from the one thing you were meant for. The one goal you needed to score or note you needed to sound to keep the music playing in harmony. No one may ever know what you did or who you are.

When you accept you are part of All and that you are limitless, then you can become love in action for the sake of All. If someone limits you, avoid them. If someone lifts you, spend all the time you can with them. You have to know one person can change it all. You can hear the song all those notes across the ages and ones today are singing to us. They are showing us the road to our Best Possible World.

To know your Self you have to submit your self to something bigger than your self. You are not separate from the Universe. You are the Universe. What you see playing out in the sky describes what is happening inside of yourself. There is no ego in union with All. Call it destiny, we all have the same one, in union together, finally.

Will you fear the loss of your self or will you embrace the destiny of All when the time comes?

No time like now.

Fellowship

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“If The Way
were about being
a student of something,
it wouldn’t be alive in the world.
It lives because certain people
say to themselves, “All this
teaching is just for me.
I am the living
expression
of this.”

This isn’t arrogant.
This is humbly keeping the buddhas,
Lao Tzu, Lalla, Rumi, Suzuki, Bahauddin,
Yuanwu, all of them, alive in the world.
Only you can accomplish this.
You are the only one.”

                     – Wei Wu Wei

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking less about yourself.“

Dispersion

“Simply
release your grasp
on worldly entanglements,
and realization is right
where you
stand.”

                             – Wei Wu Wei

A New Dance

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“Make everything in you an ear, each atom of your being, and you will hear at every moment what the Source is whispering to you, just to you and for you, without any need for my words or anyone else’s.

You are—we all are—the beloved of the Beloved, and in every moment, in every event of your life, the Beloved is whispering to you exactly what you need to hear and know.

Who can ever explain this miracle?

It simply is.

Listen and you will discover it in every passing moment. Listen, and your whole life will become a conversation in thought and act between you and Source, directly, wordlessly, now and always.”

– Rumi

On Death and Life

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On Death from The Prophet

by Khalil Gibran

Then  Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.”

And he said:

You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

Is the sheered not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?

Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

As I embrace the Light above and below in my life, something interesting is happening. I am finding a hunger for life like I have never felt it before, not a desire to leave, dominate or avoid it, but to embrace and celebrate it. What can a person do when Death smiles at them but smile back, what is there to fear? I do not have dreams of heaven, but instead I embrace my dissolution into something I could not begin to explain. I can’t wait for the next scene now and I find joy in the moment with fears and desires fading. The past has birthed this moment to have another chance to connect with my source.

So many different names and opinions about the source of life. That is why it must be found in silence beyond words, feelings and what you think. I’m ravenous, not to experience life, but to share the love I feel within that silence with all. I invite you to tune in, step up and out with me. Get messy. I have no idea where this train is going and I could care less, the view is to die for. Well, I might have some idea. There is this amazing other soundtrack to life I’m finding, always on. What is Death, but the ultimate celebration of life! From Gibran’s Sand and Foam:

The first thought of God was an angel.
The first word of God was a man.

You were given the gift of speech, but wait before you speak, consider your words and their power, because when you’re silent the words and visions that come are usually for you. 

Image – Mystical Vision of Death – Alex Grey

Abundance

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In the search
for enlightenment,
there is an ever-present
certainty that there is more to do,
someone else who holds the
secret, another state to
attain.

In the
finding of it,
there is the comical
revelation that not one
of those things was
ever true.

                                   – Wei Wu Wei

A Dervish Story – Tale of the Three Questions

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A certain Sultan owned everything a man could wish for and still he did not know the purpose of life. The answer to three questions made his life difficult:

1. What should I do?
2. With which people should I do the things God asks me to do?
3. When should I do it?

The Sultan asked the advice of all kinds of wise people, and then he was told that there was a Chishti dervish, who lived far away, and who might give him a satisfactory answer. The Sultan immediately left and after a journey of several weeks he met the dervish. The dervish was cultivating his own land. He was a simple man, but no simpleton, as he was reciting a Persian quatrain over and over again:

Kaarist waraai ‘elm raw aanraa baash
Dar bande gohar mabaash raw kaan raa baash
Del hast maqaame gaah begozaar o biaa
Jaan manzele aakherast raw jaan raa baash .

There is a work beyond knowledge, realise that, go!
Do not work to get jewels, be the mine, go!
The heart is a temporary abode, leave it and come!
The soul is the final abode, realise that, go!

The Sultan was however not interested in Persian poems and asked his three questions to the dervish. The dervish did not answer him and continued with his work. The Sultan became angry and said: “Don’t you know who I am. I am the Sultan of Sultans”. But this did not make any impression as well and the dervish continued doing what he was doing.

A heavily wounded man suddenly appeared and he dropped to the ground in front of the dervish. The dervish said to the Sultan: “Help me to carry this man to my place!” “I’ll help you,” the Sultan said, “but will you answer my questions afterwards?”

“Later!” the dervish said and together they brought the wounded man to the hut of the dervish and took care of him.

“And now I’d like to receive the answers to my questions,” the Sultan said. “You can return to your palace,” the dervish said, “because you have already received the answers to your questions. As to what to do, you should do what comes to you on your path. As to with whom you should do it, the answer is with those who are present. And as for the when to do it, you should do it the moment it takes place”.

This is the way it is with ancient truth, always chiding us to focus on the here and now. Perhaps that is a clue. I see the great beauty, hard work and gritty truth of the Sufi path and it resonates very deeply with me. I imagine myself a Dervish on some dark road with just my wits and what I have on my back with me, alone but never alone. I desired to know their ecstatic experience of the Divine in my everyday life and then I realized as I admired the beautiful green covered mountain to the East during a quiet moment, I had found it.

Image – Dervish – Bebe Brookman

The Middle Way

“Before emptying, there must be fullness.
Before shrinking, there must be expanding.
Before falling, there must be ascent.
To destroy something, lead it to its extreme.
To preserve something, keep to the middle.”

                                          – Deng Ming-Dao