Eggplant Paradox

So I was making some Baba Ghanoush and Maya, my two year old, came in looked at the eggplant I was peeling and asked me, "Mommy, what's that?" I said, "Oh, it's an eggplant honey." She looked for it a bit more and said, 'Eggplant??'. It made me look at the eggplant and laugh. 'I don't get it either baby. And that's why life is beyond words.' ...I know she heard me in there somewhere, because she got bright, laughed, and went right back to running around and LIVING.

Life is beyond words, beyond thoughts, emotions, and concepts. We we see this, feel this, live this, experience this, we get past surface projection and finally get a glimpse of the whole picture.

Raptitude

I was forwarded this blog, and so far very good. Check it:

http://www.raptitude.com/

Patterns and Cycles

Cycles of Life and Death. Patterns of Darkness and Light. Cycles of practice and non practice. Patterns of perseverance and apathy. Cycles of resistance and embrace. Patterns of flexibility and rigidity. Cycles of awareness and ignorance.

We are living as we are dying. We are darkness as we are light. We are what does as we are what does nothing. We are the courageous warrior and the coward. We are open flowing beings and shut tight nut cases. We create and destroy. We are being created as we are destroyed. We are awake and we are dreaming. We know and we know nothing. All at once.

Conduit to manifest the unmanifest.

In regards to patterns, and being aware of them:

What patterns do you create in your day?

What patters do you habitually, routinely, subconsciously and impulsively commit yourself to every day?

Habits? Personal Care? Thought Process? Focused? Unfocused? Goal
Oriented? What goals? Too much? To Little?

In our patterns we speak who we think we are. In observing it we have a fit of self honesty. In accepting it, we open the door to becoming much more.

In terms of the cycle of our life:

What is the overall theme in retrospect? What has been gained or lost? What constant cycle keeps coming back? What is the constant lesson?

The unfolding cycle of our life holds the clues to what the universe is always telling us everyday. It's the bigger picture. We see how we have tried to be, wanted to be, wished to be, detested to be, and all along consistently who we always are.

Patterns and Cycles we live and don't always understand. Constant unfolding.

Emptiness, My Lover...

Art by Vladimir Kush

One afternoon, on a day off, I was looking for something to keep me occupied and pass the time. I tried reading a book, writing some thoughts down, but all I could really manage to do was to be still. In unveiling emptiness, there will be times when so much life flows through you, all you will want to do, all you will be able to do, is lay down and absorb it. All you can do is lay down and let life penetrate you. So, after managing to do nothing else, I set personal hesitation and the sense of ego aside and lay on the bed and sunk into the stillness. This is an excerpt of what I wrote after the experience:

"This is not a journey of achievement, but of being. All is a projection of light. My eyes are stiff and staring foward. I see the light constantly moving into different colors and shades to project what is supposedly in front of me. Sight becomes blurier but clearer. There is no wind flowing from the window, the hammock doesn't move with the breeze. It's all just changes in colors, in the light particles, making it seem like there is movement but there isn't. I touch my nose with the knowing that it's not really here, I feel how my neck is really not on the pillow. My eyes are not really seeing, my ears are not really hearing. As I lay here, absorbing this new knowing, I feel a flow of energy coming through my spine soothingly rising up to where the heart lies, and here there is hesitation. This has happened before, but this time I am not scared, this time I let all hesitation that arises flow through and I let go. I sink into this body that I now reside in. I accept it, feel how life is being projected from my skin, how it penetrates and vibrates like a cool breeze of light rain within me. As one would get to know another person, one has to be willing to get to know Emptiness, get acquainted with it's constant quiet expression. As one creates a relationship with a person one loves, one has to be willing to open up to this emptiness, heighten our awareness and attention towards it, to better recognize it. This is how one can begin to lay down the foundation of opening the doorways to what is really always here. As I sink in and bond with the emptiness from where all arises, I feel that if it would have happened in the woods, in the midst of pure earthly silence and nature, I would of lost all notion of myself forever, engulfed in the natural beauty of life. But here, I will quickly be absorbed once more by the egoic demands of the society I live in. All seems meaningless with such quiet wisdom so alive within me now. "

I share this, to demonstrate the experiential qualities one can have on a personal level when coming into awareness and acceptance with Emptiness.

Dissolution

To dissolve one's self, initially sounds, nihilistic. It leaves us feeling too open, without our cherished morals, believes, and values. To most, dissolving everything that has been built, worked for, over the years, seems pure madness. It required on my end, to see the current reality and belief system held at the time crack and fall apart to even begin to conceive such a concept. It was necessary for the dormant seeds of discontent to sprout furiously, blooming my hidden suspicions, no longer allowing them to be denied. In the unfolding of my story, such a dramatic collapse of my previous perception of the world was necessary to see through it. Stark, certainly, but it created a resolve, a determination, to see through the delusional state we were creating and living our lives.

When everything was falling apart, and inside I was burning up everything that I'd ever known, believed or cherished, I could see why others thought it was madness, depression, and why I saw it was the only way. I was running against the pack. I was going against the grain. It was unnatural. To separate, isolate. I felt the disconnection, and I agree, it felt unnatural, but what I'd realized was that I had never really been connected.

Everywhere I observed others, I saw cliques bound not by some deep, indestructible knowing, but by superficial man-made parameters. 'I believe this, and you believe that, so I'll hang out here, and you hang out there, and leave me alone.' The duality and fragmentation under which we constructed our lives was clearly an unstable foundation. Tipping from one extreme to the other, a time bomb.

The desire for connection was there, but in such circumstances, connection felt conditional, like another trap. I was scared out of my wits. I'd never been so alone, so confused, so depressed. The idea of ending up in a looney bin was amusing, especially since I felt stuck in one already.

The unknown, what was beyond all this, at first appeared as a big gaping hole. Abysmal, and terrifying. The more I sought this place within, the more confusing trying to make sense of things was. There was nothing to make sense of. The riddle of the question. Where did the inquiry begin? I remember the day this question was answered. It had been a hectic day. I was laying in the driveway looking up at the stars, begging for an answer, for something to once again make sense. "It isn't the question that is problem, but where we were looking for the answers. Within the limited scope of our minds, we will never make sense of things. Get beyond. " I didn't hear this. I felt it. The information, the knowing of this began to run through my entire body. Warm and soothing, comforting it relaxed my anxious and tired mind.

That was connection. The way it ingrained such wisdom into my being made it undeniably more reliable than any other source of information I had ever encountered. It's been since moments like this that the path unfolding involved a seeking this current, that carried with it the deepest wisdom, the purest love, and the vitality required to see in such a different light.

So, when you read dissolution, when you hear it, and hopefully feel it, I offer a translation. Do not see the end to your self, but a beginning. Do not see a death, but a birth. All that falls away, is no longer necessary, and will not be missed.

Inner Flame

'The Flames of the Search'

By A.H. Almaas

How do you know that the knowledge you get from others is the truth? How do you know that your teachers, or even the great philosophers, have the answer that is appropriate for you? Christ says to love your neighbor. Do you really know that that is what you need to do? Buddha says that enlightenment is the best thing. How do you know that is what you need?

Some people say you have to learn to be yourself. It sounds good. Some people say you should be free from your personality and develop your Essence. It sounds great. How do you know it will resolve your situation? You don't really know whether any ofthese ideas are relevant or true for you. You can't know with certainty until you have experimented and learned from your own experience. Until then your action is based on faith or belief If you assume unquestioningly that what someone else says is the truth, your inner flame will be extinguished. You will believe that you have answered questions when you haven't answered them; someone else has. And they haven't answered them for you, but for themselves. We comfort ourselves by believing that others know, and that we can use their knowledge. It's a very comforting thought; it encourages us to be lazy. We comfort ourselves by saying to ourselves, "Somebody knows, and in time I'll get around to studying it. It's already known and always available to me."

But do you, yourself, really know in your heart what is supposed to happen? Do you ever allow yourself to question, to have a burning question--and not put out the flame quickly with the first answer that you hear? You put out the flame so that you can return to your sense of comfort and security.

Someone tells you that it's good to pay attention, to be aware. When you try it, it helps a little--but you still don't know whether it's the answer. You don't know whether it will actually resolve your situation. And if you believe you know, you're lying to yourself. You need to keep the question alive while you investigate for yourself.

Are you strong enough to live without answers: as a flaming inquiry into the truth?