Lila

First the Beloved is someone else. Then the Beloved is within you. Then you are within the Beloved.  In the end, or was it the beginning, you both dissolve in a silent explosion of energy with no name, no boundary, no duration. A dahlia bursts into a thousand petals, yet there is only one flower. Without a Word, creation blossoms, flares out, leaving no smoke, no ash. What burned? Your mind. Neither Lover nor Beloved remain, just a thunderbolt of stillness lost in deep listening. Love is the flower of emptiness. The void blossoms with heart-rending beauty into an unendurably beautiful countenance. Thus every mystical tradition, at last, speaks of the face of God. It is the gaze of pure awareness into the mirror of pure awareness. The subject alone, without an object, turning to behold the Christallized essence of its own Self. In adoration you cry, "Krishna!" "Amitabha!" "Lord Christ!" But your very prayer changes the Beloved into someone else, and you fall into a thousand more lifetimes of seeking. Better just be astonished, with no idea why you dance.