Layam Vraja

Layam vraja, "dissolve now." ~Ashtavakra

Stars dissolve into a rose. A rose dissolves into stars. Ask Danté.

The solution is dissolution. What dissolves? Separateness. 

I am not my skin color. I am not my tribe. I am not even my gender. I wear these veils and garments, just as I have a red shirt or a Yankees cap on: but they are not my Self. 

Nor am I my political party, my nation, or my religion. And I am not my ancestors. These are my marvelous incidents, but not my essence. The core of my existence is prior to labels, identifications, masks. Yes, I enjoy wearing them, dancing in them, playing in their forms. I need not renounce them, because they were never really "mine" to begin with. In deep meditation, these forms dissolve like the dreams they are. Then I Am. 

In deep meditation, the core of existence reveals itself as the One who cannot be divided into races, tribes, religions, parties, yet who plays in them all as light playing in a kaleidoscope. The revelation transcends thought and imagination. It is the Self-image of the Imageless. Groundless, brilliant, empty, it is nowhere and everywhere. It is the Holy of Holies.

Emerging from meditation, I need no longer look for that place. I look from that place. Then it is impossible to identify any color or creed, any political or spiritual movement, as "me." I am simply who Am. 

The verb "Am" is solid as a diamond, boundless as the sky. Who needs to say, "I Am a man, I Am a liberal, I Am a buddhist, I Am a white or a black? Not I. Just Am. Those labels of identity make the mind small. No noun, no-thing, ever really follows the verb To Be.


Image: taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE) showing the Rosette nebula located within the constellation Monoceros, or the Unicorn.

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