Fire

There is an inner fire, cool as moonlight yet more powerful than the sun. It burns away sleep, inertia, and unhappiness. This fire is subtle. Just as the husk, the peel, and rind sheathe the sweet juice of the fruit, so the outer layers of body, breath, and mind cover and disguise the divine fire.

The kiss of the Guru's presence ignites the fire. Meditation sustains it.

Immersed in the separate "I," clinging to notions of "individuality" and "independence," many disdain the Guru. Inflated intellects pass from lifetime to lifetime in slumber, like gnats dreaming they are elephants.

But this little "I," with its sense of separateness, grows so dry and thorny that it finally rouses the soul: just as thirstiness, or a bad dream, rouses us from sleep.

No longer fearing humility, the famished seeker falls down at the feet of a Master. Then the Master teaches the soul to dive deep into the ocean of meditation.

When a true teacher awakens the fire of Shakti, those flames pulse through every nerve, gently burning away the boundaries of awareness, even while glorifying the veils of perception for the sake of love's dance. That is why it is not necessary to abandon the body in order to become infinite.

Liberation is not bound by outward circumstance, by material form, or by the mind. We don't need to escape them. These veils simply become luminous and transparent to divine Love. The light of Love does not destroy our boundaries, but pervades them. The lover no longer needs to seek freedom in a political utopia, the illusion of wealth, an esoteric doctrine, or in pompous sophistries of non-duality such as, "I am not this body." The unity of Love dances in duality.

Radiant ananda, sparkling bliss, permeates each particle of flesh, each petal of breath, dissolving clouds of thought into the vast blue sky of awareness, and the "I" itself becomes a wave of joy, playing in the sea of God.
This is why we say, "Jai Guru Dev": all gratitude to the Master.


Photo by Paramax, Deviant Art