The Tangled Net

"Imagine a movie with no villain. Imagine there is only a hero who is eating, sleeping and generally just hanging around with nothing to do! Would you watch such a movie? Opposite values are complementary. Thorns and petals both exist. You have the choice to pick up either the thorns or the petals." ~Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The world manifests in a tangled net of opposites. That's the only way this shimmering dance can happen. Don't try to untie the knots. Just be the water. Then you won't get caught in the net.

The net of Yin Yang, Republican Democrat, Atheist and True Believer, the smile on the mask of Anonymous, the passion of the terrorist, the earnest Stock Broker seeking success, the warrior protecting the innocent, the pacifist protesting the war, the father and the mother creating me, their baby: these knots can never be untangled.

Lightning unites negative earth and positive sky. Ions of potassium and sodium, oppositely charged, coat cell walls, repelling toxins from my tremulous polarized flesh. Black holes in collapsing stars breathe in light, breathe out matter. God's throbbing lingam in radiant void darkness finds peace in the yoni of Mother Divine.

My spine is a mysterious serpent with head and tail, but which is which? Why should I take sides, preferring above to below, left to right, East to West? Every point of view is both true and false, depending on which buoy I cling to in the ocean of dying. But the ocean of dying is also the sea of consciousness. Consciousness has no point.

There is room for everyone in the Am when the I is gone. Why argue? I'd rather be liberated by someone else's point of view than spend this whole life trapped in the tiny lifeboat of my own opinion.

If I am the ocean, I don't need a lifeboat. If I am fully present, I don't need a point of view.

I've spent hundreds of lifetimes saving the world -- from what? Now I am the world. I am the empty space where the world appears, disappears, plays out its mirage of light and shadow.

Just for a moments, a few breaths, try something totally new. Exhale everything you believe, without breathing any of it back in. Inhale silence. Inhale trees and buds. Inhale clouds, sunbeams, stars, eyes, insufferably human faces. Nourish the earth with your emptiness.