Void

We consider ourselves to be the presence
only of what we appear to be, but what we
appear to be is only the costume, the persona
put on by what lies underneath. We are the
presence of an absence we are unable to perceive
and of which we know nothing. So we call it a
"void", and we avoid it.
Ramesh S. Balsekar

Memorial Day 2007

Christian Pentecost 2007

"Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands
but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes
through which Christ's compassion looks out on the
world, yours are the feet with which He is to go about
doing good and yours are the hands with which He is
to bless us now."

Teresa de Avila

"Awareness becomes consciousness when
it has an object. The object changes all the time.
In consciousness there is movement; awareness
by itself is motionless and timeless, here and now."
Sri Nisargadatta

THE SEA

The pull is so strong we will not believe
the drawing tide is meant for us,
I mean the gift, the sea,
the place where all the rivers meet.

Easy to forget,
how the great receiving depth
untamed by what we need
needs only what will flow its way.

Easy to feel so far away
and the body so old
it might not even stand the touch.

But what would that be like
feeling the tide rise
out of the numbness inside
toward the place to which we go
washing over our worries of money,
the illusion of being ahead,
the grief of being behind,
our limbs young
rising from such a depth?

What would that be like
even in this century
driving toward work with the others,
moving down the roads
among the thousands swimming upstream,
as if growing toward arrival,
feeling the currents of the great desire,
carrying time toward tomorrow?

Tomorrow seen today, for itself,
the sea where all the rivers meet, unbound,
unbroken for a thousand miles, the surface
of a great silence, the movement of a moment
left completely to itself, to find ourselves adrift,
safe in our unknowing, our very own,
our great tide, our great receiving, our

wordless, fiery, unspoken,
hardly remembered, gift of true longing.
~ David Whyte

The identified man takes part in
things and suffers. The unidentified
man merely watches the spectacle.
The identified man tries to understand
truth while the unidentified man
experiences it.
Ramesh S. Balsekar

You are not the mind. It is axiomatic that the perceiver
cannot be the perceived. You can perceive your body;
therefore, you are not the body. You can perceive your
thoughts; therefore, you are not the mind. That which
cannot be perceived or conceived is what you ARE.
Ramesh S. Balsekar

Mothers Day 2007

Theotokos

Kaddish
Mother of my birth, for how long were we together
in your love and my adoration of your self?
For the shadow of a moment as I breathed your pain
and you breathed my suffering, as we knew
of shadows in lit rooms that would swallow the light.

Your face beneath the oxygen tent was alive
but your eyes were closed. Your breathing was hoarse
but your sleep was with death. I was alone with you
as it was when I was young but only alone now
and now with you. I was to be alone forever
as I was learning, watching you become alone.

Earth is your mother as you were mine, my earth,
my sustenance, my comfort and my strength
and now without you I turn to your mother
and seek from her that I may meet you again
in rock and stone: whisper to the stone,
I love you; whisper to the rock, I found you;
whisper to earth, Mother, I have found my mother
and I am safe and always have been.

~ David Ignatow ~

(New and Collected Poems 1970-1985)

Our lives are in fact being lived for us rather than
by us as we seem to think. All our experience,
if carefully analyzed, would clearly show that
volition is really not a significant factor in our lives.
Only the most minute fraction of our total physical
and mental functioning even appears to be subject
to volition. Did you exercise volition when you were
conceived? And when the conceived material grew
in the mother's womb? How long can you live without
sleep,without food or water? How long can you go
without the excretory movements of the body? How
do you breathe and digest your food? Do you have
the absolute certainty of remaining alive for even the
next five minutes on the strength of your own volition?
Ramesh S. Balsekar

Man has himself created the horrific problems which face him today. For hundreds of years man has been trying to "improve" the world, and if there is chaos as he sees it, it is only he himself who is responsible. It is presumptuous beyond measure for the individual human with his puny brain, donated by the courtesy of nature, to have arrogated to himself proprietorship over the whole natural order. We have, in fact, so separated ourselves from the universe and its unimaginably complex system of relationships that the more we try to control the world, the faster it runs away from us. It is only when the individual can view the universe as inseparable from himself that he sees everything in its true perspective. Technology becomes destructive wherever this oneness of the universe is not understood. Most significant, however, is that man's very misunderstanding of the universe is also a necessary aspect of WHAT IS in the inevitable functioning of Totality!
Ramesh S. Balsekar

The one who could effort is this silly king marching around thinking that he has birthed the world and birthed a life. Ha! It’s simply telling and noticing the truth. That we never ever were in charge or making any of this happen. Let's look inside and find this one who's making your life happen. I can’t find anyone either. And yet, I’m going to make it happen. So it’s simply noticing in every moment our foolishness, that we could ever have stolen the crown, this little me, and thought we had anything to do with anything. We are here for the ride. The mind will argue and will find plenty of evidence in its self-created world of not-enough-ness, surrounded by enough-ness, it will create and point to the evidence of the not-enough-ness in its own little created world. And underneath that always, everything unfolding, moving, and you watch. So you can just kiss that sweet, chattering, over-responsible mind, just kiss it until it’s so crazy, you know like when you have a child that’s getting very serious about something, a thousand and one kisses over its face and head and it forgets what it was so serious about, this is the treatment we can give the mind. Cutie pie, thanks for your suggestions, lovie duckie, thank you so much for all your efforts on behalf of survival. Mama’s here sweetheart, now take your nap.
Jeannie Zandi, Taos, NM

The crux of man's dilemma lies in the concept
of time. While chasing his mythical happiness
of the future, man has no time to enjoy the
present moment. And actually there is no such
thing as the present because by the time one
thinks of it, it has already become the past.
Therefore, what is vital is not thinking about
the present but actually being the present
moment -- and that is nothing other than
enlightenment.
Ramesh S. Balsekar

To do whatever is required of you in any situation
without it becoming a role that you identify with is
an essential lesson in the art of living that each one
of us is here to learn.
- Eckhart Tolle

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted sleep.
Robert Pinsky

seeker of truth

follow no path

all paths lead where

truth is here

~ e. e. cummings ~

(Complete Poems 1904-1962)

Monkey Hill

We will sit all day on a bench in the sun watching the spider monkeys.
It will at moments resemble an internal Eden.
But we will not know this.
We will think that we are just taking pictures with our minds.
The male will stand upright and scratch his silvery-gold chest.
It will sound rough and shameless.
Over and over the egg of tenderness will break in our hearts
at the sight of the baby spider monkeys.
For nothing could be more guileless or curious.
The mother will stand on all fours and stare into space
and we will see by her eyes that all of this is beyond her,
though she is intelligent she is unable to fathom
this sweet injustice nature has made cling to her back.
And we will wait for those moments
when out of the concrete slabs piled to resemble a hill
a splendidly squealing chaos of monkeys
rushes, some trespass or crime in monkeydom,
causing us to cry aloud, Look at that one!
And then also there will be those moments we are embarrassed
and only through a deliberate effort
will we not look away as the monkey
reaches backwards to pull at the indescribable
pink something that dangles from its bottom,
and we will feel our humanity is endangered
and that our intimate moments might lap over into the animal world
and our privacies be beheld with such ghastly frankness.
But no monkey does any one thing for very long.
So soon the candor will pass.
And gradually the shadows of the trees will touch our bench
and it will get cool, then uncomfortably cool, and there will be fewer
and fewer monkeys, and no one will be on the opposite bench
with detached and absorbed expression, and even the thief gulls
will have left the moat, and we will say these words as we stand; no;
think them: Oh God, whatever else be true, though nothing is permanent,
may the myth of our lives be like this memory of monkeys; that real.
~ Stan Rice

At this moment, is there anything lacking?

Nirvana is right here now before our eyes.

This place is the lotus land.

This body now is the Buddha.

--Hakuin

When our inner peace and well-being depend on forces outside

ourselves (circumstances, the marketplace, other people) the

stress and anxiety that result in personal conflict, and that get

in the way of our effectiveness, are always close at hand. Our

buttons get all too easily pushed.

But as we become more established in our true, awakened nature,

we are far less at the effect of those outer forces. We then bring

greater clarity, confidence, and focus to the problems needing our

attention. We are able to act decisively and generate results with

more consistency and predictability. In those instances where

events do not work out favorably, we are able to more quickly

make the adjustments needed to get things back on track.

The simplest and most direct method for making the shift back

to our true nature is as follows: As often as you remember

throughout the day, pause and take the time to breathe slowly

and consciously. Then bring your awareness slightly behind and

above your head. This is more the real you. From this place,

make your body, sense, and mind/personality objects of

observation. It is as if you are witnessing all that is arising within

your awareness.

If you are being bothered by a particular thought, belief, or story

(for example, “What if I fail?”) examine it objectively. Be very still

for a moment or two, and look at the belief as you would any

object from this detached place slightly behind and above yourself.

Do not judge it or analyze it. Become aware of yourself as the

awareness, or consciousness, that is looking at this particular belief.

Now be aware that what you are looking at, you cannot be. You are

what is looking.

The belief, “What if I fail?” is just a thought form arising within the field

of awareness that you are. When you stop identifying with it through

the practice of presence, you cease giving it power. Through applying

this technique many times a day, eventually the belief will lose its charge.

It will no longer be a button for you. No belief or thought form can

persist for long in the light of clear, sustained awareness, or conscious

presence.

After you have freed yourself from one limiting belief, then take the

next one that is causing conflict, and work with it in the same way.

The more you do this, the more your head will clear, and you will

come to a place of authentic inner freedom. Instead of living from

your mind and its worries, you will live from an alert yet relaxed

sense of awareness in the present. Then you will be able to use

your mind for the powerful creative tool that it is, but it will no

longer be a source of conflict or stress for you.

©Jim Dreaver, 2007

...being no one, going no where.

"You talked about the first principle again,

but I still don't know what it is," I said to Suzuki.

"I don't know," he said, "is , the first principle."

--Shunryu Suzuki

In the mechanics of intellect, conceptualization is a
process where only one part of the mental operation
is favored, not just by ignoring the other part but by
specifically rejecting it. We have thus become so
conditioned to accept the rational intellect and reject
wild intuition that we feel ourselves enslaved by
nature, where as it is not nature that enslaves us
but our attachment to our particular interpretation of
it. We forget that nature is not different from us - we
are nature. Indeed, it is this separation from the rest
of nature that we ourselves create which is the cause
of all our conflict both within and without and of our
wanton destruction of nature itself.

Ramesh S. Balsekar

"When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected!"
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj