Dying My Last Breath

Oh the echoes in my mind
From ancient times to midnight row
What a distance the golden bird has flown
I’m running with the wolves tonight
I dream of being alive
Will we ever speak again
Can I have back what I broke
I have born the scorn of the forlorn
I sit here on a sunken boat

Empty Cup

Nothing compares to the song of love sung with all your heart

It brings down stone walls

It moves the birds from their perch

It makes holes in space

It stops evil in its tracks

This song of love is a healing balm

We who steal hearts know it well

We have been seduced ourselves by it

We move to its flow and we feel its movement through us

A feeling we rarely know in our small lives

To feel it flow through you, removes all doubt, all sadness and suffering

One would feel ashamed to bring their suffering before love

But love beckons, come

Bring it to me

Bring me your deep sadness and I will fill your cup

Pour yourself out again and I shall fill you up

And one day, the water will begin to flow and never stop

The Last Pilgrimage

Raudiel Sanudo

Difficult Emotions

emotions

I struggle with anger and difficult emotions at times. When you come close to the Light, it can be confusing to see such strong negative emotions rising up. It’s natural I have found. These emotions, as temperamental children, demand our attention at uncomfortable times. I have been seeking an answer to how to deal with these emotions.

Love is always there, but we are filled with many other things as well. We gain our knowledge from the world. We must live in and experience the world. We need insight and compassion to change ourselves and indeed the world. We ourselves are not the standard, nor is any other person. We can trust our daily experience guided by insight and mindfulness. We need to learn to be mindful enough to let impulses pass.

The Sufi’s have taught me about loving myself. Jesus taught me to love my brother. From The Four Quartets:

Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.

The Buddhists have been helping me learn compassion as well. I have to be mindful of these difficult feelings. I am challenged to not respond to them, if I do, I quickly stand up and brush myself off.

Mindfulness helps you to become aware of these feelings. We can bear these difficult emotions. To stay present in our anger and difficult emotions is difficult, but awareness of these emotions brings change. If I can see this anger and feelings in myself and let them flow away, I can see it in others and learn to not respond to them as well. I can have compassion. Anger hurts you and your target. I am practicing not reacting to these emotions. It goes slowly.

Behold Kabir

kabir.jpg

I am wrecked by Tagore who translated The Songs of Kabir, here is a taste. Kabir sought to find common ground between Hinduism and Islam. I can’t read much at one time. I think he found common ground for All of Humanity. What are my silly scribblings beside such beautiful expressions of the soul for the Beloved from One who was so close. I am speechless for now.

I want to visit and live in this place. I could almost touch it reading his words.

II. 61. grah candra tapan jot varat hai

THE light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright:
The melody of love swells forth, and the rhythm of love’s detachment beats the time.
Day and night, the chorus of music fills the heavens; and Kabîr says
“My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky.”

Do you know how the moments perform their adoration?
Waving its row of lamps, the universe sings in worship day and night,
There are the hidden banner and the secret canopy:
There the sound of the unseen bells is heard.
Kabîr says: “There adoration never ceases; there the Lord of the Universe sitteth on His throne.” p. 61
The whole world does its works and commits its errors: but few are the lovers who know the Beloved.
The devout seeker is he who mingles in his heart the double currents of love and detachment, like the mingling of the streams of Ganges and Jumna;
In his heart the sacred water flows day and night; and thus the round of births and deaths is brought to an end.

Behold what wonderful rest is in the Supreme Spirit! and he enjoys it, who makes himself meet for it.
Held by the cords of love, the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to and fro; and a mighty sound breaks forth in song.
See what a lotus blooms there without water! and Kabîr says
“My heart’s bee drinks its nectar.” p. 62
What a wonderful lotus it is, that blooms at the heart of the spinning wheel of the universe! Only a few pure souls know of its true delight.
Music is all around it, and there the heart partakes of the joy of the Infinite Sea.
Kabîr says: “Dive thou into that Ocean of sweetness: thus let all errors of life and of death flee away.”

Behold how the thirst of the five senses is quenched there! and the three forms of misery are no more!
Kabîr says: “It is the sport of the Unattainable One: look within, and behold how the moon-beams of that Hidden One shine in you.”
There falls the rhythmic beat of life and death: p. 63
Rapture wells forth, and all space is radiant with light.
There the Unstruck Music is sounded; it is the music of the love of the three worlds.
There millions of lamps of sun and of moon are burning;
There the drum beats, and the lover swings in play.
There love-songs resound, and light rains in showers; and the worshipper is entranced in the taste of the heavenly nectar.
Look upon life and death; there is no separation between them,
The right hand and the left hand are one and the same.
Kabîr says: “There the wise man is speechless; for this truth may never be found in Vadas or in books.”

I have had my Seat on the Self-poised One, p. 64
I have drunk of the Cup of the Ineffable,
I have found the Key of the Mystery,
I have reached the Root of Union.
Travelling by no track, I have come to the Sorrowless Land: very easily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me.
They have sung of Him as infinite and unattainable: but I in my meditations have seen Him without sight.
That is indeed the sorrowless land, and none know the path that leads there:
Only he who is on that path has surely transcended all sorrow.
Wonderful is that land of rest, to which no merit can win;
It is the wise who has seen it, it is the wise who has sung of it.
This is the Ultimate Word: but can any express its marvellous savour? p. 65
He who has savoured it once, he knows what joy it can give.
Kabîr says: “Knowing it, the ignorant man becomes wise, and the wise man becomes speechless and silent,
The worshipper is utterly inebriated,
His wisdom and his detachment are made perfect;
He drinks from the cup of the inbreathings and the outbreathings of love.”

There the whole sky is filled with sound, and there that music is made without fingers and without strings;
There the game of pleasure and pain does not cease.
Kabîr says: “If you merge your life in the Ocean of Life, you will find your life in the Supreme Land of Bliss.”

What a frenzy of ecstasy there is in p. 66 every hour! and the worshipper is pressing out and drinking the essence of the hours: he lives in the life of Brahma.
I speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life; I am now attached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away.
Kabîr says: “Thus is the worshipper set free from fear; thus have all errors of life and of death left him.”

There the sky is filled with music:
There it rains nectar:
There the harp-strings jingle, and there the drums beat.
What a secret splendour is there, in the mansion of the sky!
There no mention is made of the rising and the setting of the sun;
In the ocean of manifestation, which is the light of love, day and night are felt to be one. p. 67
Joy for ever, no sorrow,–no struggle!
There have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy;
No place for error is there.
Kabîr says: “There have I witnessed the sport of One Bliss!”

I have known in my body the sport of the universe: I have escaped from the error of this world..
The inward and the outward are become as one sky, the Infinite and the finite are united: I am drunken with the sight of this All!
This Light of Thine fulfils the universe: the lamp of love that burns on the salver of knowledge.
Kabîr says: “There error cannot enter, and the conflict of life and death is felt no more.p. 68

Why not eat the apple?

image
Bosch – The Garden of Earthly Delights

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung

Did humankind develop speech and thus awareness, which brought knowledge of the consequences of our actions? Was it worth eating that fruit of awareness in that ancient garden? We are working that out as I write.

Do you see one thing with your eyes focused together or do you see different things with your right and left eyes? Do you know yourself? Do some parts inside scare you and others inspire? Sometimes the way forward is not toward the light and bliss, but deeper into the darkness and pain. Great creativity and genius often goes hand and hand with an equal measure of shadow. Your unconscious selves will be acknowledged one way or another. For the artist, they have a natural outlet to project their light and shadow on and hopefully find wholeness in the acknowledgement of both.

This can be a confusing and counterintuitive process. Many people are unconsciously led by parts of themselves they are ignorant of or are actively hiding from or ignoring. This may make it seem like we have little free will. Life can seem chaotic. Not so, in the moment we have choices to love or fear, embrace truth or lies.  Your journey into the darkness must be led by the Light of Love though if it is to succeed. The Light followed us into this natural plane and provides what we need to rise above it or we can descend into the depths of the natural. There is Truth in the Light, external and internal. To connect the Light outside to the inner Light is true illumination. You can transmute anything with this (W)Holy Light.

In darkness within, you are searching for the lost and scary parts of yourself if you seek wholeness and a unity of opposites. It has something to do with the Law of Attraction, which implies opposition and duality in all things. As humans though, we may seem like an individual on the outside, but inside, we are Legion, multi-faceted with many voices. Carl Jung’s archetypes describe the inner world or Dante’s Inferno. You need heat to facilitate the chemical reactions. The journey to wholeness is a lifelong and perhaps eternal one. Goethe explores this journey in Faust, where at the brink of suicide, a way through is found acknowledging the light and dark within. So many of our myths inspire and speak of these deep hopes and fears in ourselves buried in our individual and corporate consciousness.

What is wholeness?

Learning to confront our inner impulses and desires perhaps and balance them with the outside world we experience that changes moment by moment. This provides a new context to consider suffering and desire. To seek wholeness leads one to confront the opposites within, which can lead to balance. With no unity, a person is fractured and unable to face adversity and challenge. Through learning the nature of the opposites within ourselves we find inner and outer balance and peace.

There are many cultures that have a creation myth similar to the Eden story of the major religions. In western religion the Devil represents the great tempter of mankind. But I have experienced and accepted that this is incorrect and all metaphor and allegory. Through my own inner journey, I have learned that the Devil represents the divine feminine in us. The creative force and hidden natural self loving desire that drives us. The Devil or serpent brings knowledge of the consequences of our actions and demands us to stand up and accept responsibility for our actions.

Now, this is likely to spark a deep reaction in the religiously minded. This is by design. We are not encouraged to explore the darker aspects of our natures, but you are what you are. There have been many systems developed to help transcend suffering and transcend our lower natures. These kind of skipped past something big for me. They provided little help in understanding and processing the shadow thoughts that seem in opposition to our drive upward. Carl Jung helped me best. He bridged eastern and western thought and helped describe this process of spiritual alchemy and unification in a way the western mind could understand. We are not good or evil, but a collection of opposites in need of balance and maturity.

A fractured inner mind can be expressed through physical and or mental imbalance. We must relate with the world calmly in Love shining the Light of Truth. A fractured mind is full of sharp edges that cut and makes it difficult to relate to others. If you are experiencing pain and suffering, this is a sign of imbalance. It takes careful deliberate incremental steps to find the causes of and to apply solutions for the sources of these imbalances physical, mental and spiritual. This is our work to do in this and perhaps many lives and the first and most important way we heal the world, by balancing ourselves first. To know thyself is to see your actions honestly so you can keep things in balance.

You will know the quality of the tree by its ripe fruit and the roots of that tree must go down deep, as Carl Jung said, even into hell. This is my experience. To find wholeness you must embrace your shadow. That does not mean act out on your darker desires and impulses, but to acknowledge their presence and explore their sources.

I feel like I am wandering in dark caves at times, I shall not fear (But sometimes I do). I have my Light and hope and the Love I feel behind that Light inspires me onward and inward. I feel the many visions of Eden point us to our Source above and inside. Eden will not allow those not worthy to enter and we are all on our journey back to wholeness in the Light.

The Truth is, you already have that which you seek, eternity in your hearts, so just chill and go with the flow and just act natural.

I think I will take another bite of that apple now.

Shadow Work

cage_by_parablev

the One below
and the One above
at times pulled
Me apart
until
a timid
voice arose
and
said
things
are as
they should be
have no fear
rise
and join your
bothers and sisters
in the
Light
of Your
creation
remember
always
serving
healing
and
Loving
your
self
best
brings
salvation
to
All
it
will
all
be
OK
You must
pass
through
this
furnace
now
why
do
you burn
you ask

because

You are Loved

Neutral Buoyancy: A Winning Strategy

I had a dream last night. I don’t remember it clearly.  It was important I felt, to somebody. This morning a kind of summary regarding recent happenings in my part of the space-time continuum began replaying in my mind and I felt some of my dream coming up. Been percolating for awhile. Here is the gist of it. I have been given many game pieces and hints recently to play with in this beautiful game of Life which it seems was created for our good. They just floated by. Let me explain.

This is not new information. It has been beamed into our heads since birth by everything around us, Life is a game. Some would have us believe either suffering is not real or that Life is only that, suffering. Suffering does not exist as we think it does. I’m not going to tell you it isn’t real. How do I know for sure? It sure as hell hurts sometimes. I feel It is more a corrective subroutine. You are not supposed to like it. It hurts. But there is a higher path through it. You just have to realize you are not real in the sense you think you are and thus your pain, is more guiding then crippling. Suffering encases you in a pupa in which you can grow into a beautiful butterfly. Any separation we feel between us inside/outside is our own. The point is to learn and explore your connections to every thing around you using all skills and talents at your disposal. We are not to shut our minds off, instead let them be guided by beneficial principles. There is a level of self benefit, but when you factor in other’s benefit into your thinking, you reach the next game level and as a bonus, you get a conscious awareness power up in game. You learn this through trial and error. There is no right or wrong, just the way things are. You accept them or not.

How do I know this? I read the instructions sillies. I didn’t just dream it. I’m not that crazy. In fact, I’m not crazy at all. I am completely lucid at this moment, more so than my entire life. That is an interesting point in the game. The infinite possibilities bonus level during a moment of clarity. The instructions are in this really hard to get to space in the 2nd ventricle of the heart, written reversed against the inner heart wall, in the sanctum sanctorum. For $19.99 I can mail you instructions how to find it. It’s such a small price to pay for such a great game hint 🙂 Even the instructions were hidden in this game.

I have learned through experience, there is a middle way, balance is possible. The Creators of this game don’t even know its depth. Why do you think we are here. From now until we die or our collective clocks run down, any doubt this is true will be shown to you as folly. Do you need to know its a game, in a way, yes.

No Man’s Sky is a new simulated Universe game that created a Universe in 600,000 lines of code. They modeled our current understanding of physics into the game. It’s the first of its kind and unique in its scope in the way the Universe was modeled, on demand, the subroutine for a new area starts running. The patterns in our brain are hard wired to seek a Creator and know thy self perhaps. Maybe people are led unconsciously to create games that mirror Ultimate Reality because we are not ready to occupy that specific game level yet. Or perhaps that is beyond the game. And to say it is a game, they mean we are a simulation most likely.

Everything is a mirror. We are creators and that I think is part of the point of the game. Learn to love, flow free and create good things spontaneously for all. The game routines are not running when not needed. Now bring in VR and you can see we are on the verge of a new entertainment explosion. Watch, you will see VR take over in the next 5 years. It is a true fractal simulation based on the theory’s of Nick Bostrum. Nick is a philosopher who the smartest people in the world are listening to. He is an AI theorist. Nick just showed we are likely not real and simulated. If the smartest in the world believe this, what do you think they are doing? They are running the game. Accept, being most powerful is no better in this game than being a gamete.

How did I come to know this, because I know it as sure as my arms and legs before me. I told you, I found the instructions. The eastern and western esoteric traditions have explored our simulation in great depth. This is the Truth at the center of their secret knowings. They learned that once you have read all the instructions, you have to turn yourself into a key. A key to unlock parts of the game. It is a very common human reaction that when you know you have discovered the key, 9 times out of 10, people want to keep it for themselves and theirs. That is a test. It is a losing strategy.

So if you want to be President, a drunk, a beggar, a drug addict, ruler of the Galaxy, a janitor, a Dad, a Mom, do it! All equally valid in the spirit of exploring the game. As many times as you want for as long as you want. We have eternity it seems. But there is an order to things. A game progression. We are being directed in a way it seems to make ourselves better. To expand our minds. It seems whoever expands the furthest, maybe even into non-existence in the game is the winner. There is a hint. Openness and awareness. Anything you can do to foster those seems to lead to some great in game benefits.

Now, here is one existential paradox. If it is a game, no matter how hard you try, you will only be able to learn what has been put into the game. It may be a closed game, seems unlikely, but we can never know. Nick explains it is impossible to know if we are simulated after we have created adequately sophisticated simulations ourselves.

OK, that all seems logical, but is the Universe only logical? We just can’t know. Everyone has their own subjective experience. May I suggest a good game strategy that has been working well for me, neutral buoyancy. Neutral Buoyancy is a condition in which a physical body’s average density is equal to the density of the fluid in which it is immersed. Don’t go out of your depth, let the currents and your own composition lead you up or down as a balloon. Truthfully, you can’t go anywhere where you have not equalized to the pressure. In this way, it is impossible to cheat in the game to get to the true treasure.

Go with the flow.

That’s it, its also the title of my new book, Neutral Buoyancy: A Winning Strategy. I decided to try to write about the game instructions. Its not against the rules. But it is a proven losing strategy though. No one listens. I thought I would try to knock my head against the wall writing until something else comes loose.

Life is a game.

Standing Beside You

I wrote this for a friend in hard times. Be well T!

You are a painted masterpiece
Your splendor shines from you
Be connected to calm things
And places you love
Walk old joyful times past
I met you on the road to destiny
I feel your pain
Let my words wash over you
And I will snatch it from you
Lay it on other’s shoulders who can bare it
I stand beside you and whisper
You are Loved