‘I’ don’t matter
But my thoughts do
They become the nature
Of my ‘am-ness’.
It’s not the ‘I’
But the ‘am-ness’ that must grow
From being an identity
To simply being…
To free yourself
From experiences that bind you
Means to change
The direction of your thoughts
To shift your attention
From confining circumstances
To an ever-present vastness
That alone
Is the extent of your freedom…
Moving from ‘I’ to ‘am-ness’.
Must we live
Keeping in mind
The question of
‘Will this matter in the end’?
If life is continuous
And there is no end
What then should the question be?
Evolution seems to be
The purpose of a journey
In this journey from
One day to the next
Release yourself
From patterns that bind you.
Make departures.
Change direction.
Have faith
That all roads will lead you
To your destiny.
Do not be afraid
To change your mind.
Breathe…
Don’t hold on to an event.
Let go…
And
When you let go
Let go of that which holds on to it.
Let go
Of expectation, of need, of want…
Of dead ends.
Inhale
A new air; welcome a new possibility
Allow it to enter
Let it
Lift you up…
Refresh and revitalize you.
Breathing
Is the blessing of your life
In its rhythm, you stand perceived…
Freed
Of all that you held on to
Of all that you thought was important.
Sustained
Through an abundant providence
Of ever-expanding consciousness.
How do we move
From a lower
To a higher freedom?
Is it a question
Of resolution, of strategy?
Or of having faith
In the buoyancy of love?
Or of taking cues
From your own dissatisfaction
And moving away
To seek higher joys?
Life, I’ve come to see
Doesn’t work out like a plan
It doesn’t particularly
Care for accomplishment
It doesn’t need you to arrive
Anywhere in particular
But walk you must…
Its action is an unfolding one
Requiring from us, not anticipation
But the willingness, agility and humility
To simply surrender.
In my dream
Last night I saw
That my embodiment
Challenged every law
Closed doors and walls
I could walk through
If need be I could rise at will
Standing atop any mountain or hill
There were no limitations
Of time and space
And I could be in more than one place
I saw how people saw me
A mix of awe and dread
“Can this be possible of someone alive;
She must be dead!”
The actions and reactions
That I saw in my dream
Made me understand
That I’m not what I seem
The me and them; the other’s face
All existed in my mind’s space
On waking up
I could understand and see
How every person in my dream
Was a creation by me
Their existence was all a play of my mind
On waking up
None of them I could find
They had all disappeared
I alone remained.
No us, no them, no you, no me
All relationships are fated for an end
In the mind’s story.
Last night’s dream
Has revealed to me
A deep wisdom about how to be
The only thing we must learn as we live
In all of our relationships
We must learn how to give.
It’s in giving that I’ll come to be
All of you
Smiling through all of me.
Why am I made to perceive
The apparent, the not-real?
If nothing in this world is made to last
Then why am I designed
To experience the sorrow
That comes from loss?
Surely joy and sorrow
Are not an end
But a reason…
To contact a form of existence
That is unaffected
By the ephemeral…
I close my eyes
And feel the ache
“If only the conditions
Had been conducive to permanence…”
I think to myself
Thoughts I know are futile
Nothing is blessed with permanence
“Always” and “forever” are the
Dreams we see when asleep
In the warm embrace of a mute existence
That existence, that permanence
Will meet you only as your silence
It’s not the loss of contact with another
That causes you sorrow
It’s the loss of contact
With yourself.
The instance of dwelling
On a moment
Or on a question-
That which you know exists
But which you can’t articulate
Is not inertia
But a pause…
We pause to see…
To grasp at the substantial,
The indicative, the meaningful
The instructive.
We dwell not because we don’t want to venture
But because we want to receive
The call to do so…
Or for guidance towards a direction
It’s not our knowledge
But our perceptiveness
That opens us up to
Recourse from a truer word.
It’s not that we don’t know
How to respect others
It’s that we don’t know
How to love ourselves.
Our self-love
Takes the form of arrogance-
An insatiable need
To seem of greater dimensions.
We zoom out of intimacy
We stand distant and above others
Measuring their being…
Sizing them up
So that we may continue
To feed our sense of self-worth.
But what I fail to see
Is that ‘I’ am not my Self.
‘My’ self is not ‘me’.
It’s not an ever-evolving being
That must be asserted
To determine its existence.
It’s not a life that needs to grow
Through accomplishment and gain;
But is a flame that needs to be kindled
So that it can confront
Its own darkness.
Self-love is not easy
It takes courage to shine a light
To your formlessness
And to see clearly
All the creatures of your imagination
You thought were real.
Respect grows
Not in the glorious conception
You create of another
But in the removal
Of all misconceptions about yourself.
O Pain!
You reduced me to tears
Demanding that all my attention
Be devoted to you.
You seemed punishing…
Cruel and senseless
I thought of all the things
That needed me
To be in perfect health…
And how your grip
Was so disabling.
I tried to subjugate you
With every antidote
I cajoled you…
I subjected you
To a stubborn resistance
I tried to conquer you
And then I dropped.
And when I dropped
I felt you…
Suddenly grateful
That I could feel at all
I heard the soft whispers of the rain
Felt the wind
Cool the sweat on my brow
And saw the light of day
Gleam on my floor.
O Pain!
You recalibrated my life
Reminded me
What in essence mattered
You taught me
That in truth
To be able to feel
Is my only freedom
And my only responsibility
What I refuse to feel
Grows within me as pain.
I took
a perfectly fine
empty moment
and filled it
with a search for meaning.
I assigned it
An agenda-
A question for contemplation
Believing that
In its silence
Lay answers
And a wealth of wisdom
“That’s my relationship
with emptiness…,” I realized
“I simply won’t accept
its nothingness…
At least not without
any meaning…”
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 