Uradiance

This morning, I take a Sabbath rest from the work of thinking. For I am not my thoughts. I have thoughts, they come and go, but my thoughts are never who I Am. I am the silent wonder that embraces the universe before a single thought arises . Thoughts arise and dissolve like bubbles on the surface of the ocean of silence. To have thoughts is not a problem. To be contained by thoughts is suffering.  The world can never make me unhappy. Only my judgments about the world make me unhappy. Perfect silence is the Last Judgment. It is always Now. When I take this Sabbath rest from judging the world, I finally see the peony blossoming in my garden.

Every breath I receive from the Source contains one thousand times the joy I seek through my senses. But enamored of fleeting forms, I overlook the Gift. The starry hollow in the core of my heart where the universe is born, contains one million times the joy in each breath. But enamored of fleeting pleasures, I overlook the miracle I Am. See your own Beauty. Then give.

I confess,  I have an ancient problem.  My will is weak.  It needs to be strengthened  with divine grace.  Therefor, in the evening,  I listen to the thrush.  In the morning, raindrops  on ferns.

  Sports gives us metaphors for politics. We're watching the real World Cup in the Middle East. Follow this. We celebrate our loss to Germany as a win, saved by Portugal's defeat of Ghana, which enabled them to come in last, p ropelling us into second place. That should help you understand this: USA sends arms to Sunni rebels to defeat Assad in Syria, who helps us defeat the same Sunni rebels on the border of Iraq. Meanwhile we send drones to defend Malaki, whom we actually want to overthrow because he is supported by Iran, who helps us defeat the army of ISIS, whom we funded and armed as 'Sons of Iraq' during the surge. If you don't get this, wait till the Knockout Round, where it becomes very simple: Sudden Death. Maybe we're already in overtime and don't know it. Here's my prediction: the victory goes to the arms manufacturers, who don't care which team wins. ___________   Picture: ecstatic American fans celebrating their l...

Authority is an illusion. There is no authority. No authoritative teaching, no authoritative teacher, no authoritative text, no authoritative version of the text. There is only the assumption of power, and our agreement. Authority springs from the heart's consent. If any government or court of law, any bible, guru or savior has sovereignty over us, it is only because the heart agrees to give away its own ecstatic beat of power. The smallest weed, trembling under the weight of a butterfly, has as much authority for me as God, if I consent to this moment of impeccable beauty.

There are no opinions left to have. They've all been taken. We'll just have to get by without them. What I learned too late in life was, my opinion really doesn't matter, even when it's 'right.' Only those who already agree will agree, and those of another opinion will just become more polarized, more defensive, which increases conflict.  Nobody ever convinces anyone of anything they didn't already believe. Each of us arrive at truth in the freedom of our own awareness. Truth cannot be argued, only stumbled on.

To end this madness, we need a revolution of Presence against the tyranny of the ideal. There is no more savage assault on the earth than to compare, to measure the sacrament of what Is against what Should be. Creativity arises through Presence. Fully awake to this moment, my smallest act has world-changing significance. Now is the time to settle my breath upon the ordinary, as a moth lands quietly on a mossy stone. My only goal: to develop a gentle abiding affection for things just as they are, hallowed in their fallenness by the heart-breaking beauty of imperfection.

Understanding is the beginning of action. I love the word "under-stand." Stand in the motionless place beneath the turmoil and disorder of the world. Resting my awareness there eliminates the need for much useless action, which is really ju st re-action. From there, established in the stillness of the Heart, I can perform the one perfect act that is required of me in this moment. At this divine summer solstice hour, why wait for sunrise? Be the Sun. Rest in the Heart. Under-stand.

" Father, what is the destination of this world-appearance or repetitive existence? When will it come to an end? When will the delusion of the mind cease? Gaining what shall one attain total satisfaction, seeing what shall one seek naught else? I see that it is impossible to attain this by means of experience of the worldly pleasures or actions. For, they only aggravate the delusion! Pray, tell me the means by which I shall rest for ever in supreme peace."   ~Yoga Vashista     Religious intellectuals have presented t raditions like Buddhism, with its essential meme of Sunya ("emptiness"), the Neti Neti practice in Indian Vedanta ("not this, not that"), the Via Negativa of the Christian mystics, as negative and even nihilistic philosophies, devoid of any positive joy. This has led to centuries of gloom and renunciation. But the actual taste of emptiness is the most positive experience a human being can have. Emptiness is precious because of ...

I am the nameless continuum of experience, the seamless flow of wholeness. The waves of the world that dance in the sea of my silent awareness are not other than the "I" who perceives them. No separation between the universe and my awareness of it when no thoughts divide them: this is the pristine innocence of my original Edenic wildness before the Fall into thinking. But the serpent of mind slithers into this garden and plays a t rick that sabotages the wholeness. I  super-impose labels onto the spontaneous flow of incomprehensible perfection: thus my mind imagines itself a do-er, an agent of free-will, standing over against the world that it others.  Mind imposes beliefs onto the world like "mistaken," "imperfect," "not enough," "better," "worse," "right," "wrong," "more," "less" - eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the duality of opposites. And af...

The paradox of Presence: When I let go of the past, I pass through the heart door, into the mystery of silence. Then I can hear the most ancient music, the singing of my ancestors, who are more present than time. This is why, when one is i nitiated into meditation, the initiator performs the Puja ceremony to invoke the masters of the Holy Tradition. As the initiator, by the grace of the guru, becomes centered in absolute silence of the heart, all the masters from Lord Narayana to Padmapada, to Vashista, to Shankara, to Sri Brahmananda become intensely present, breathing divine grace into the vibrations of the mantra. Eternal consciousness in the fleeting now.

I do not deny the deep sadness of Iraq, or the bitter, angry, heartbroken feelings triggered by the current collapse of Iraq in the bodies of Iraq veterans, whether they are against the war, or simply confused about their relationship to this dark story in American life. I breathe this pain and confusion into my heart, bear it, and infuse my tears of light into the darkness.  I confess that America is powerless. I confess that America is powerless. Sometimes the healthiest thing to do is simply to stop pretending power. Iraq, I'm sorry, forgive me, I love you. U.S. "power" is the illusory power of the guns: they always come back to destroy us. "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword," Jesus said. Every surrogate army we train and load with weapons becomes a Frankenstein that turns on us to destroy its creator. Our CIA spawned Al Queda in Afghanistan when we thought we were fighting Russians. Saddam Hussein was our ally in the war against I...

Little things are huge, big things are small. Lets get some perspective, friend. When you taught that little girl to tie a bow on her glittering sneaker this morning, galaxies made a figure eight, swimming through eternity. When you carefully clean out your hummingbird feeder, the forest sighs and gives breath to our whole tribe. If you teach your heart to say 'yes' as softly as a raindrop on a fern, millions hear music falling out of the bright hopeful darkness.

Does the sun fall into its reflection on the water? There is no falling in love. Love is not a relationship, but an effulgence. The heart overflows, bathing whoever enters its radiance. Love has no object. The radiant heart blesses both friend and stranger, not for the sake of the other, but for the sake of love its Self. Some say this sounds very selfish. Yes, love is divinely Self-centered. And the centered heart is the heart that truly gives, for it wants nothing in return. How could we fall in love when love is where we already always are? We fall into love's reflections, but reflections fade. If I love a Master, a Savior, an Avatar, even this love will fade in the course of time. If I fall in love with the most delightful paramour or spouse, the charm will fade some day. If I give my heart to charity, in the most loving service of humanity, this selfless passion will burn out and fade away. Weary petals fall; the energy of the blossom sinks back into the s...

I have never felt that the traditional understanding of Grace quite captures the profundity of it. Both Christianity and theistic Hinduism describe Grace descending from above, or from the blessing of another: the saint, the savior, or the avatar. This is a nice description of "blessing," but a blessing is only temporary and external. Grace is innate. The juice of Being, the marrow of breathing, Grace flows ceaselessly, never withheld by the Divine. We just need to get out of its way, and settle effortlessly into alignment. God rewards alignment. Grace is the power that percolates through the still axis of every harmony, spilling from divine Consciousness into the center of the galaxy, overflowing to the sun, to the earth, and from the earth into my body. Here, Grace is the radiance of my heart center: it illuminates every cell of my flesh and sets my atoms spinning. Grace is not super-natural, it is natural. The grand alignment of the universal and partic...

After 10 million years in the realm of the gods, reclining in majesty, dressed in royal golden armor, and delighting in the scent of a celestial rose that never fades, I grew restless. I whispered to the gandharva who played the same sweet song, every note a thousand years, "Is there nothing more?" The music stopped. A voice said, "Ah, you have asked The Question." Then the voice told me of a place where one tastes birth and death, moments of intensity instantly dissolved, the bittersweet scent of eternity grown fragile and passing away, each Now a treasury of loss, of mingled pain and pleasure, longing and union, the rose, the thorn, your eyes, my tears, the salt wind, and so by a circle of opposites expanding the dream until it is unendurable to sleep, and one awakens, never to be held again by any form... "Are you ready?" the voice said. "I am afraid," I murmured. "Then you are ready, child, you are ready."

I am the echo in the stone           off trail in the old growth forest.      Sit here awhile by a bend in the stream           whose irrational angle secretly fits      with all other bending streams           into a hidden circle      that flows into and out of itself,           nourishing eternity with one drink.      Sit awhile in cathedral green. Hasten not,           for you are an elder now,      and after you drink of this circle           listen deeply (I am the echo      in the stone)           and you will hear the beginning. You w...

  "My only suffering from this day forth will be your divine beauty."   ~St. John of the Cross "The Love that You are worthy of is your tearing of my veils so that I can see You."  ~Rabi'a See, in the path of love there is no East or West, no Christian or Muslim: just 700 billion kinds of surrender. Angels are created in the state of surrender. But humans pass through many lives of anxiety and regret, yearning and sorrow, before surrender happens, by grace. And this is why surrender in a human being is ten thousand times more full of wonder and gratitude. 

Which way does the magnolia bud unfold? To the East or the West? To the Right or the Left? Please touch the whole world now. Awaken in every direction at once. Be the radiance you seek.

Rest this breath in the miracle of the ordinary, with no concept of ‘miracle' or ‘ordinary.’ Virescent gaze of sun through leafy fern or any tessellated peck of downy on a worm-worn oak will do. Faith is kno wing there is nothing to seek. If tutelary voices persist, embrace them like gongs in the empty sky: breathe in ‘miracle,’ breathe out ‘ordinary'... 'miracle,' 'ordinary'... until, without effort, any intention to be somebody dissolves in the luminous charm between words.