Uradiance

What rises from the ashes is not a reaction or a protest against ashes, but the wild and burning freshness of something never seen before. Speak, create, embody the fire. Art by Lucy Arnold

99% of our suffering comes from believing in our thoughts. And when we have lost our center, our Presence, we believe that our thoughts are the world. We call them the "future." But since we were so wrong about the future in the past, it is delusional to continue believing in it. In fact, we have no idea what the future will bring because the future does not exist. An enlightened definition of insanity would be, "mistaking the world for your thoughts about it." Have a bracing cup of green tea. Gather some wood and light a fire. Take a barefoot Winter walk at midnight in sparkling moon-grass. Slap yourself in the face by plunging your head into a cold forest stream. Or plunge into seva, service, to someone in need. Instead of believing in your thoughts, believe in the warmth of your skin, the rhythm of your heartbeat, the touch of your hand, the grace of sensation. Use awareness to divinize your sensuality. Awareness is not thought. Awarene...

The incomprehensible architecture of the present moment sparkles all around us with the diamond splendor of the hologram, an intergalactic macrocosm prism'd in the dewdrop of each atom, inviting our surrender to whatever simple task we do right now. There is no more perfect kingdom, no more wayless way. Just pay some attention to the most infinitesimal ordinary delights, until you taste the nectar of attention itself. This is not an escape. Everything else is an escape. This is simply a call to be who you are and 'do what you are doing': age quod agis . Minds that are constantly unraveling into threads of bad news, trailing off into regrets about the past or anxieties about the future, become far more useful and powerful when absorbed in the silence of bewilderment, the miracle of Presence.

The most powerful language does not need to shout. The most powerful tongue does not seek a crowd to listen. The most powerful voice neither mocks nor offends, but breaks with the breaking heart of the world; does not react, but reveals from deeper silence the Word that would create a new and better place. The most powerful language is less than speech yet more than song, rustle of evening light, breath of stars, sussuration of morning's first misted ray, murmur of wind in pines, waves that pound in soft surrender to a grain of sand, cry of tiny flycatchers piercing, thawing the bog between seasons, the Mother tongue of whisperers, both Lover and Beloved. _____ Our public discourse has degenerated into a language of curses, spells of destruction, promoting discord and division. Let a new language emerge from our hearts, seeded in silence, inflected with the sounds of the green earth, to heal and gather us in circles of creative listening. The g...

 "Eternity was in our lips and eyes." ~Shakespeare Take a long sweet gentle breath in, then give it back... Take another long sweet gentle breath in, then give it back... Root down in silence... Now open your eyes and create the world you see. Open your palms and fingers to create the world you touch. Open your heart to immerse this planet in the ocean of your love. For so many lifetimes you have been the antenna, the receiver of information. Your senses were portals to let creation in from outside. You took this passive role for gra nted. But now is the time of the Turning, when the tide of evolution changes direction. The rays of the universe no longer flow from outside in, but inside out. Humans must now evolve into creators. You are called to Divine Sensuality. Stream the energy of awakening through your eyes, your ears, your tongue, your nostrils. Radiate the Shakti of a new earth out from your core. From now on, You will be the one who says, ...

The Goddess said to me, "I have inspired poets, artists, musicians and dancers to awaken you, so that you may be the creators of your world; but instead you follow politicians. I have made you lions, but you would rather be sheep. Now follow the golden thread of joy out of the maze of illusion, back to the diamond palace of your heart." Artist: Josephine Wall

What is a complex mystery to the mind may be a simple sensation to the heart. Whether it is grief or joy, follow any faint thread of sensation into the heart. It will open a door. The kingdom of love is just a breath away.   "Let the m ind descend into the heart" ~Philokalia, Orthodox Christian classic "Set the mind in the heart." ~Vijnana Bairhava "See that your chief study be about your heart." ~Jonathan Edwards But for many of us, the din of electronic media, the buzz of consumer culture, drown our hearts in a stupor of numbness. Our schools teach us that the heart is only a physical pump. Yet science proves otherwise. Research in neuro-cardiology reveals the heart as both an endocrine and neural center. Like the brain, the heart is rich in chemical neurotransmitters, with an electro-magnetic field hundreds of times stronger than the brain.º How do we begin to reestablish connection with the heart? Several times a day, e...

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We chose to be born in this world of contending opposites, where everything is coming apart at the 'seems'.... Here we gain fearless wisdom. Fearless wisdom is not knowledge in the mind, but naked seeing, free from thoughts, that penetrates between the opposites, through the seems of mere appearance, until we discover that there is actually nothing to worry about. It's all a play of light and shadow, prism'd through the diamond of our consciousness. Then we are free to gaze into each other's eyes with love, as jewels exchanging the jagged brilliance we are both made of. Yes, we have some rough edges. But even our edges are made of light.

Beware of the science which teaches that your Self is contained in your body. Beware of the education which teaches that your Self is contained in your mind. Both body and mind are contained in the Self. Body, mind, and even ego, are useful instruments for the Self to extend its wonder into worlds of form and vibration. But they are only very small creatures swimming in the vast un-created waters of the Self, who was awake in its own radiance before the worlds were made. Indeed, your Self shines through your body.Your Self shines through your mind.Your Self shines through your ego. Your Self shines through the Moon and Sun. Your Self pervades the stars, and the space beyond the stars. The body grows old and dies. The mind dissolves each moment. But the Self is a continuum that neither comes nor goes, neither sleeps nor awakens. Changeless and infinitely interior, more intimate than "I" to "Am," the Self does not think, feel, or perceive; th...

In the symbolism of Hindu art, Krishna's body is the color blue. This blue color is signified by the seed syllable Shyam, another name for Krishna. The sound of this bija mantra expresses Krishna's boundless sky-blue essence. The color blue is the vibration of infinite beauty before it takes any form. At the heart of Vaishnavite philosophy is the esoteric teaching that this formless blue essence has a transcendental form. This form is not composed of matter, but of pure mathematical symmetry, the mathematics of the void. It is from the algebraic symmetry of the vacuum that creation is generated from nothing, a teaching not only of ancient Indian seers but of modern quantum physics. And it is within the transcendental symmetry of pure mathematics that the body of Shyam crystallizes. Just so, 11th Century Christian mystic Hildegard of Bingen gazed into transcendental emptiness and saw the lineaments of a cosmic human form. She called this form the mysterious "blue man...

                    Mandala by Hildegard of Bingen, 12th C. The mind cannot liberate itself. Liberation requires the grace of the body. In the final vision of Dante's Paradise, Canto 33, at the radiant center of the divine essence, the poet beholds the archetype of the human body: O everlasting Light, you dwell alone in yourself, know yourself alone, and known and knowing, love and smile upon yourself! That central circle which appeared in you to be conceived as a reflected light, after my eye had studied it awhile, within itself and in its coloring seemed to be illumined with our human likeness... Thus in First Corinthians 6:20, Paul the Apostle writes, "Glorify God in your body." If we did not have this body, we would be hopelessly trapped in the whirlwind of our thoughts, like the disembodied souls in Dante's purgatory, driven by every gust of desire and habit...

On the first day of the New Year, go outside and take a walk. Walk in a new world, a world that crystalizes out of nothing this very moment, this very breath, a world composed of pure Love... Which of course is this world, the world we hardly notice, just as it really is... But before you take one step on your walk, you must see the simple truth. The creation all around you, along with the one who beholds it, are made of the same substance: pure Love. You walk in Love. The ground is Love. Matter is Love. Mind is Love's moving stillness. There are no straight lines. Every motion is a swirl of return to Love. Look at these earthly forms - trees, rocks, a dump truck, a port-a-potty, a broken bicycle in the milkweed. Each atom is hollow, yet brim-full with Love. Every boundary is a boundless fractal of infinite Love. All creatures swell with a breath of emptiness, lighter than space, and that emptiness is the fullness of Love. You don't need to vis...

"Eternity" is not an otherworldly condition. It's just remaining in the present moment. The past and future are the jaws of Yama, Lord of Death, ever waiting to devour us. But we are delivered from death's dominion when we enter our own Buddha nature, the Kingdom of Christ Consciousness, which is simply this unbounded Now. Where can we enter? Gaze into a flower. How can we enter? Dissolve into a breath. "But how can you be of service to humanity if you are just gazing into flowers and breathing?" Only in the Kingdom of Presence is compassion possible. When you are present, you are available to the person right beside you. No one in the future needs your love. No one in the past needs your love. You are needed here. (Photo: another exquisite Kristy blossom.)