Hearing the Fire


What I Am cannot be known by the mind, conceptualized as a thought, or concluded from any sequence of syllogism or philosophical reasoning.

What I Am vibrates organically through every cell of the body, arises in a stream of golden sound from the silence at the center of each particle, and shines from the darkness of the vacuum. I Am tasted but not known, felt but not thought. I Am a buzzing in the molecules.

Therefor, when I hear or read words that ignite this nourishing voluptuous inner light, and I feel it percolate out of my marrow, it is certainly not because of any meaning conveyed by thought. Words and thoughts of the Master, like his glance or touch, are just vehicles for an unspeakable molten current that irradiates the flesh. Mind has nothing to do with it. Mind only gets in the way.

In the beginning was the Word.... And the Word became flesh, not thought.

If this irradiation happens when we read or hear the words of Jesus, Muhammad, Rumi, or Vedavyasa, it is not because their words "mean" anything, but because their words are words of fire, lit by living awareness. Sparks of Presence spill through the empty space between the letters.

The great tragedy of the Western "educated" classes is that we mistake spirituality for an intellectual process, something to be read about: when in fact, mind is just the smoke and not the flame.

To meditate is to offer our whole body, including these little nerve spasms we call "thoughts," back into the furnace at the center of each atom, where there is a cry of ecstasy that has no meaning, and the cosmos is created in a breath of fire.

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