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Come meander with me on the pathless path of the Heart
in these anecdotal,
sometimes inspiring, sometimes personal meanderings of the Heart's opening in the every-day-ness of life...

Friday, July 26, 2013

"Into Silence" with Deva Premal...




“Sit quietly

And listen for a voice

That will say

'Be more silent.'

As that happens,

Your soul starts to revive.”

Rumi


 


The chant is Aad Guray Nameh
It is from Deva Premal’s CD: “Into Silence”

The meaning of the chant is:

I bow to the Primal Wisdom/Truth
I bow to the Truth/Wisdom woven throughout
time and space
I bow to the true identity of the Self
I bow to the great, unseen Wisdom/Truth
that will always be…

~*~

This is a Comment Free post…
Thank you for your Presence…

Enjoy the Silence here…



Monday, July 22, 2013

Sabbatical Window...

Silence at the Window
opens a portal to the Sacred,
allowing me to *feel* the Sacred in life
and the Sacred Life within…

Enables me to breathe deeply again,
dissolved from the day,
and to be breathed…
to relax, let go, soften;
to be at ease with life
through deep Silence,
in the inbetween spaces
of the night…

At the window
Silence surrounds me, embraces me,
calming my resistances to life,
dropping me into the deep Silence
of acceptance;
not a volitional “acceptance” of the mind,
but a deep, internal allowing from
the depths of Being…

The Ocean allowing ITs waves…

Every resistance recedes of its own accord
without effort
embraced in Silence…

At the window I quiet into the night
and listen…
waitng for the movement of Silence
that inhabits the breeze,
breathing the night,
and commune with the Cosmos without filters…

Discursive thought slows,
awareness heightens…

Life just plays ItSelf out here,
outside my window,
in natural Rhythms…

My dramas are just a minute
story of life,
just waves in the Ocean of Consciousness,
in the Flow of
Life just Being…

Enveloped in the Silence that is my “Beloved…”
I remember the Essence of Life within,
the vast space of Aware Conscious Silence…

We are One…
in congruent Rhythm…

Sabbatical




Meditative Writings
Mystic Meandering
July 14, 2013


~*~

I started a practice called “window sitting” several years ago, where I just sit in the Silence of Life at an open window late at night.  I become aware of the sounds and smells of the night, deeply listening to and experiencing the Silence that pervades everything.  I haven’t practiced this for several months, but I just recently realized that the window *is* my “sabbatical spot.”  It is a sanctuary of Silence that fills, and fulfills me…

Please see this post from 2011 and enjoy the Silence at the Window. J

Please see Life As "Sabbatical" for my definition of "sabbatical."


~*~

Photo:  Rain on window capturing light from
the street light.
This is not the window I sit at...



THIS IS A COMMENT FREE POST
Thank you for your Presence here...
May you experience Sacred Silence
Love and Peace to all...








Saturday, July 20, 2013

Sabbatical Days...

Surprisingly, this week opened up several “sabbatical days”  in my new experience of “life as sabbatical” – days of quiet inner rest, getting in tune with the Oceanic Rhythm of Life again, moving intuitively and spontaneously, letting the days unfold, meeting each day as it presented itself, without agenda – without should haves, or should not haves – or resistance to what was, but allowing each day to be what it was, moving me through the day, trusting that Life would move in the way it needed to.  And it did…

I started reading a wonderful book by Jeff Foster that is well worth the read, called: The Deepest Acceptance: Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life.  Not surprisingly it is about accepting our life experiences no matter what they are.  But more than that, it is that Life ItSelf (the Being that we are deep within) accepts every experience, including all our feelings and emotions, no matter how we label them.  Life circumstances are already deeply accepted at the depths of Being Itself – the Ocean of Consciousness.  The experiences of our lives are like waves in that Ocean, and are never separate from that Ocean. In that sense, it is about awakening from the illusion of separation from the Ocean of Being that we all are – that deeply connects us all…

This view, which I have heard many times throughout my “spiritual” meandering, is now being heard as if for the first time, and changing my orientation to life and living.  The more I read, the more I realized that *everything* is deeply okay – no matter what the life experience is. That even though our surface life may be painful, filled with challenges, with fear, anxiety, depression, grief, anger, sadness, and dysfunctional families J, those feelings, experiences, and families are just waves on the surface of the Ocean of Consciousness. And ultimately *everything* is allowed, is deeply embraced by this Inner Oceanic Living Consciousness of Life. The waves are not separate from the deep Oceanic movement of Life, but are, in essence, the Ocean ItSelf moving through life.  With this realization I deeply relaxed, letting go of resistances to life, and slept well for 3 nights, instead of fighting the waves.  I began to get a taste of true freedom - no longer fighting with life…. And yet emotions and feelings continue to move through, like waves.  Sometimes I contract as if to keep them away – then remember - “everything is deeply okay.”

As I was being absorbed by this new awareness that “everything is deeply okay”, no matter what the circumstances, I felt the Heart of Love began to open up, ever so slightly, revealing ItSelf for just a few minutes – just enough to catch a glimpse of a larger Love.  It was an all-encompassing, non-perosnal Love for *all* life, all of humanity, and the dance of Life that is being played out here, even what we label as “darkness.”  It is a compassion for the struggles of humanity, which is part of the dance, without being affected by the struggle, or the need to fix it.  It’s more a deep open space of Love that allows everything to be; allows us to be who we are…

In knowing that “everything is deeply okay” there is only a deep bow to life, a deep honoring of life, a deep regard for life, an awe of life and the way Life plays Itself out here.  The  *Essence* of LIFE is living ItSelf in form.  And the miracle is that it’s all deeply okay, however it is. 

“Everything is deeply okay.” I keep repeating these words like a mantra, which takes me to deeper levels of peace, awareness and openness to life. As I feel the truth of this more deeply, I relax and find myself living life *from* a  deeper place of Inner Being that just IS – spacious and open to all of life experiences - where everything is embraced and loved just the way it is.  This is freeing…

~

“Life cannot be good or bad.
Life simply is,
appearing as all there is,
what we label as
good or bad…”


“From a place of deep acceptance of the way things are,
in seeing the inherent perfection of life itself,
one is still totally free to do what one is moved to do:
to help, to change things, to make a difference.
It’s just that our actions are no longer coming from
the root assumption that reality is broken
 and needs to be fixed,
and, underneath that, the assumption that
each of us is separate from life.
Any movement that comes from the assumption
that life is broken will simply perpetuate
the disease it wants to cure.

Acceptance is all about seeing reality,
seeing things as they actually are,
not as we hope or wish them to be.
And from that place of alignment
with what is,
all creative, loving and intelligent
action flows naturally.”


“Great freedom lies in fearlessly facing the
darkness
and finally coming to see
that the darkness is inseparable from light.”


All quotes: Jeff Foster
From: The Deepest Acceptance

~

Photo: Shadows on a Wall




Thursday, July 4, 2013

Life As "Sabbatical"...

July 1st became the beginning of a refocus of life and direction, becoming clear that I must re-discover what is important for the Spirit within to thrive; what is important for this expression of Being to feel enlivened; getting clear on how IT wants to move through life.  I’m still “getting clear.”  It’s an imperative that I can no longer ignore.

The word that came up that day was “Sabbatical”, the theme: “life as sabbatical.”  Just the sense of this enlivens me!  Much like the word “Sanctuary” did back in April.  There is something pulling me towards “sabbatical” as a way of life. It has been all my life actually, and I must pay attention.  It’s like a deep need that *needs* to be met, like the body’s need for air and water.  Without it you shrivel and eventually die.  It’s like knowing that you were born a different gender than your true gender, and you also know you cannot thrive unless you allow the Truth of who you are to be lived.  The same thing is true for the life of Spirit: to live in a way that honors and expresses the Life of Spirit within, that otherwise would shrivel.

This does not mean that I am going to take a sabbatical *from* life, or go on an endless retreat, or live as a saddhu in a cave, as much as those ways of living appeal to me ;)  It is much deeper than that.  It is more being devoted to the Inner Life, contemplatively, creatively, and meditatively in a way that LIFE/Spirit/Being shows me, following the intuitive movement of Life lived as “sabbatical.”  Just as the wave does not move separately *from* the Ocean, but can only move as the Ocean moves *it* - that, to me, is “life as sabbatical.”  Not a sabbatical *from* life, but *within* life - *living* from the Inner Flow of Spirit within, from the Heart of the Infinite Abiding Spirit, or Lotus of the Heart…  I know that some of you are already living this way.

“Sabbatical” as I am using it here, for me, is really an “inner path”, an inner “sabbatical” – following the inner Truth of one’s True Being, one’s Essence, or True Nature – not one’s ego-needs, wants, or desires, or wranglings of the mind in constant philosophizing *about* the Truth.  It is about *living* the deeper inner Reality of Being – intentionally, experientially, consciously, which so far I have been distracted from – by life J, but which still deeply calls to my Heart.  It is a way of living that is vitally *aware* of the Abiding Inner Spirit – continuously.    It is about deepening *into* this Inner Abiding Spirit of Being.  And I have no idea how this will take shape, or what it will look like.

The dilemma is, how to live this “sabbatical life” *without* withdrawing from life to follow this inner Pull of Consciousness, but creating an environment and lifestyle conducive *to* a “sabbatical life” (contemplative life) within life – relieving the burden of daily obligations and external distractions; living the Truth of the Heart according to the Rhythm of the Infinite.  I believe this *is* the Heart “Calling.”  For me this means to deeply experience the Essence of Life, of Being, the Spirit of Life, in a contemplative way; to be meditatively devoted to the Infinite within; to recognize it, to feel it, to *know* it – intimately.  THIS – intimately communing with the Infinite that we *are* in the Eternal Now, and allowing That to live me is - “Sabbatical.”



Photo:  The camera went off by mistake
while “under the hood”
J leaving this blur of color.
I digitally enhanced it by adjusting the “levels”
on Adobe Fireworks.
To me it looks like a woman celebrating Life
with arms in the air.
But that is most likely my projection
as I move into a new way of Being
in the world.
J