the things that we see & touch in this world are the shiny mirror-blurry
reflections of beauty from anotherWhere, so familiar! we know that
dear realm from the hot sweet-swift throb of recognition deep within the heart.
we yearn for that original purity, & we chase after the things
of this world hoping to reclaim it, yet it disappears in the grasping.
the music we hear that moves us to the core is a faint intimation
of that glorious music of anotherWhere. we hope to follow it
back home to our place of original purity, yet we have become
heavy, dense & cumbersome in bodies of warm meat & blood. we know
somehow that we are so much more than this, & we quest after that which is
still beyond our ability to register. yet this journey comes to
us all eventually. it is what happens when we can finally
struggle & shrug our way out of our protective yet restraining cocoon
or chrysalis. Shiva silently oversees this inevitable
timely transformation. He gives us the push & the lift to open our
wings & soar finally into the purity of that embracing space
of endless enfolding love that we can never quite forget. even our
new wings are made of shimmering light & music now that we return to
our root origin. it is our home, & we are here bearing the gifts of
our various wanderings, ending our exile in moist meat & dense bone,
as we return again to the living light of the soul's divine abode.
i am not the body-personality nor am i the author of the
actions of that physical being. i am the observing awareness, the
indwelling presence ever abiding beyond thought, who calmly witnesses.
that which is done through the body's agency, because of the influence of
the personality, belongs to that entity alone. it is not mine.
i am the pure bright awareness enlivening the body: truly, i am
not of the body. i am ever free, ever stainless, like a cloud in the sky,
like space itself, just present, offering no resistance & no attachment.
now i am standing on the threshold between body-personality &
observing awareness. in daily life both flow with the evolving events
of the moment. yet the body-personality has many ups & downs,
whereas the awareness remains clear & steady, unattached to the outcome.
this is what i contemplate in sadhana, Shiva. i currently am a
fluctuating amalgam of spirit & matter. it's like that tremulous
moment when the butterfly realizes that she is in the chrysalis &
can remotely sense her wings slowly developing, but she herself is yet
vulnerable & powerless to act. nor is it needful, for creation
is unfolding & happening naturally, by itself, for all of us.
ah Shiva! this sadhana is on-going, a way of life, & i am quite
fundamentally drawn to it, attracted like the moth to her fulfillment
in the fire of flaming truth. i am witness to the blazing conflagration.
i rise into flight & i break into song, into a thousand
thousand pieces. they all have their own holy lives & they have their
own wings as they fly off to do their own duties. surely songs are
free beings with their own dharma after they emerge from the lips:
they have their own journeys to set out upon. i carried them all
when they were tender & small & it's time now to let them go free.
i break out of the prison i carefully made out of rules, roles
& regulations. i'm cutting the cords; i'm leaving the matrix.
i'm fully out of the chrysalis now, shedding the confining
tight old skin & spreading my wings into the rising sunlight. they
glow & they know just where to go, & i am but a passenger.
Shiva, these wings will take me to You: what else can be their purpose?
what else can they do but take me to You? that's what this life is for.
following Your guidance, Shiva, i continue to review
my life story & the blinders placed there by memory &
society, finally revealed & stripped of their power.
You have ripped the bandage from the wound & healed it with Your touch.
You healed it with Your touch, strongly resembling a surgical
procedure, as the whole is freed from the iron grip of the
presumptuous part. i need a new perspective now. it's time.
the upheaval of the quaking earth i long considered firm
beneath my feet has flung me out of my resting place & tossed
me in the air. & that is how i learned to fly & look from
there on high to see the patterns playing out in a vast expanse.
i see the story scrolling by, the hidden now revealed--&
this life makes sense, i can see it now. this life makes sense at last!
this life makes sense at last as the hidden stands revealed,
shaped by Your holy hands to prepare me for the part i play.
all i've learned in the past must now be dropped, must be left behind,
just like the empty chrysalis when the butterfly takes flight
& forgets all that had come before as if it were a dream.
THIS HAPPENED 