At the Leading Edge

God is no longer “up there” waiting to save us. Until very recently, that creative principle was something that we were asking for help from. But I believe we've reached a time in history when God, which I would describe as the energy and intelligence that created the universe, is now completely dependent upon us—upon those sentient beings who have reached a level of development where we're actually capable of beginning to appreciate who we are and why we are here in nothing less than a cosmic context.
God, or the creative principle, is who we are. From an absolute perspective, who we are is not only that formless, unmanifest dimension from which the universe emerged, but also, and simultaneously, the creative, manifest dimension—the evolutionary impulse, the spark that initiated the big bang, which is our own Authentic Self. The mysterious compulsion to evolve that we experience at the level of consciousness is nothing less than God becoming aware of himself, herself, or itself, as us. And the creation of the future, at the leading edge of evolution, is dependent upon each one of us waking up to this Authentic Self and making whatever effort is necessary to begin to identify with that thrilling creative passion and to transcend our attachment to the fears and desires of the ego or separate self-sense, which go on forever. In this awakening, we directly know that the future depends upon us. It's no longer just an idea; it's an emotionally felt absolute fact.

Andrew Cohen
September 2005

Sonnet XIV from Sonnets to Orpheus

Look at the flowers, so faithful to what is earthly,
to whom we lend fate from the very border of fate.
And if they are sad about how they must wither and die,
perhaps it is our vocation to be their regret.

All Things want to fly. Only *we* are weighed down by desire,
caught in ourselves and enthralled with our heaviness.
Oh what consuming, negative teachers we are
for them, while eternal childhood fills them with grace.

If someone were to fall into intimate slumber, and slept
deeply with Things - : how easily he would come
to a different day, out of the mutual depth.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Or perhaps he would stay there; and they would blossom and praise
their newest convert, who is now like one of them,
all those silent companions in the wind of the meadows.

...he not busy being born

Is busy dying.

excerpt from the song
Its Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
~Bob Dylan

*What I See In Your Eyes*

Out of myself,
but wanting to go beyond that,

wanting what I see in your eyes,

not power,

but to kiss the ground
with the dawn breeze for company,

wearing white pilgrim cloth.

I have a certain knowing.

Now I want sight.

from "The Glance"
Rumi/Barks

Do with me what You will.

If you were to place before me hellfire,
with all it contains of torment, I would
think lightly of it in comparison with my
state when You are hidden from me. Forgive
the people and do not forgive me.
Have mercy upon them and do not have
mercy upon me. I do not intercede
for myself or beseech You for what is due to me.
Do with me what You will.

--Hallaj

Ego: An Anti-Evolutionary Force

What is ego? In an enlightenment context, the word ego refers to a deeply ingrained, unconscious, compulsive, and mechanical need to remain separate and superior at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. Ego is expressed as an irrational refusal to say yes to life, to love, and to God—to an unconditionally positive relationship to the human experience.
The true face of ego is rarely seen for what it is except at those brief moments when you have recognized something as being absolutely positive, wholesome, and good, and are compelled to respond, to say a wholehearted yes to that which you have recognized. It is only in those moments that you come face to face with the force of a powerful inertia within you that blindly resists, defies, and denies that which is radically positive. This is what ego is: that immovable stance, deep in the human heart and mind, that irrationally resists any call from within or without to embrace the greatest goodness. When we aspire to evolve at the level of consciousness, to live a spiritual life, to become an enlightened person, we open our hearts to the thrilling possibility of something so inconceivably glorious that it's just too positive for most of us to bear. And it is only when we dare to even consider saying yes to this highest good that we will experience this kind of profound confrontation with our own self—both with the anti-evolutionary force that exists in all of us, and with our normally untapped potential for extraordinary developmental leaps.

Andrew Cohen

Tilling the Soil

Seeing a man who was tilling the earth, a fool, unable to control himself, cried out, "Why are you ruining this soil?" "Fool," said the man, "leave me alone: try to recognize the difference between tending the soil and wasting it. How will this soil become a rose garden until it is disturbed and overturned?"




~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

n yeki âmad zamin-râ mi shekâft ablahi feryâd kard va bar na-tâft "Kin zamin-râ az cheh virân mi koni mi shekafi va parishân mi koni" Goft "Ay ablah be-raw bar man ma-rân to `emârat az kharâbi bâz dân Kay shavad golzâr o gandom-zâr in tâ na-gardad zesht o virân n zamin Kay shavad bostân o kesht o barg o bar tâ na-gardad nazm-e u zir o zabar

-- Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi Mathnawi
IV: 2341-2345 Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance" Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)

Hafiz on Brokeback Mountain

It happens all the time in heaven,
And some day

It will begin to happen
Again on earth -

That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are
Lovers,

And women and women
Who give each other
Light,

Often will get down on their knees

And while so tenderly
Holding their lover's hand,

With tears in their eyes,
Will sincerely speak, saying,

"My dear,
How can I be more loving to you;

How can I be more
Kind?"

~ Hafiz ~

Long seeking it through others,

I was far from reaching it.
Now I go by myself;
I meet it everywhere.
It is just I myself,
And I am not itself.
Understanding this way,
I can be as I am.

~ Tung-shan ~
(806 - 869)

Out of the Mouths of a Thousand Birds

Listen -
Listen more carefully to what is around you
Right now. In my world
There are the bells from the clanks
Of the morning milk drums, And a wagon wheel outside my window
Just hit a bump Which turned into an ecstatic chorus
Of the Beloved's Name. There is the Prayer Call
Rising up like the sun
Out of the mouths of a thousand birds. There is an astonishing vastness
Of movement and Life Emanating sound and light
From my folded hands And my even quieter simple being and heart. My dear,
Is it true that your mind
Is sometimes like a battering
Ram Running all through the city,
Shouting so madly inside and out About the ten thousand things
That do not matter? Hafiz, too,
For many years beat his head in youth And thought himself at a great distance,
Far from an armistice
With God. But that is why this scarred old pilgrim
Has now become such a sweet rare vintage
Who weeps and sings for you. O listen -
Listen more carefully
To what is inside of you right now. In my world
All that remains is the wondrous call to
Dance and prayer Rising up like a thousand suns
Out of the mouth of a
Single bird.

~ Hafiz ~

It is not those who lack energy or refrain from action, but those who work without expectation of reward who attain the goal of meditation. Theirs is true renunciation. Therefore, Arjuna, you should understand that renunciation and the performance of selfless service are the same. Those who cannot renounce attachment to the results of their work are far from the path.

-Bhagavad Gita 6:1-2

Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth,

a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything
is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.

Natalie Goldberg

COMPARING RUMI WITH RAMBAUD

I've come again
like a new year
to crash the gate
of this old prison.

I've come again
to break the teeth and claws
of this man-eating
monster we call life.

I've come again
to puncture the
glory of the cosmos
who mercilessly
destroys humans.

I am the falcon
hunting down the birds
of black omen
before their flights.

I gave my word
at the outset to
give my life
with no qualms
I pray to the Lord
to break my back
before I break my word.

How do you dare to
let someone like me
intoxicated with love
enter your house.

You must know better
if I enter
I'll break all this and
destroy all that.

If the sheriff arrives
I'll throw the wine
in his face.
If your gatekeeper
pulls my hand
I'll break his arm

If the heavens don't go round
to my heart's desire
I'll crush its wheels and
pull out its roots.

You have set up
a colorful table
calling it life and
asked me to your feast,
but punish me if
I enjoy myself

What tyranny is this?

-- Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Translation by Nader Khalili
"Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
Cal-Earth Press, 1994

Compared with

The Drunken Boat

AND I HAVE NO FEAR

I sit in my own radiance,
And I have no fear.

Walking,
Dreaming,
Sleeping,
What are they to me?

What is far or near,
Outside or inside,
Gross or subtle?

I sit in my own splendor.

-Ashtavakra Gita 19:5-6

HAPPY NEW YEAR

"That's the remarkable thing, isn't it?
Enlightenment is ruthlessly intelligent.
Peace doesn't get involved in any of the
details -- one's historical, moral, religious,
spiritual, racial, political, educational,
or social background and so on. Not one iota.
Wisdom cares nothing about these things.
Freedom only knows of this one eternally present
moment. That makes it all very, very simple -- no
need to complicate it. With no
historical or future entanglements, there is just
this one immediate choice: Are you completely
willing TO BE that which you say you love and
revere, no matter what the circumstances?
No pause, no hesitation, no deliberation.
If you say yes and proceed to speak or think
or act in a way that contradicts it, then it
begs the question, are you serious about this?
This simple question, "The way you are living
this instant, does it work?" is profoundly useful.
If it isn't working, then what will it take?

If we are not wisdom, if we are not freedom,
if we are not serenity this very instant,
then what good is any of this? If we are,
then in our very being here, we offer the most
precious and joyful gift in the world to everyone
around us. Infinitely more than thousands of
philosophies or religions, or millions of words.
It's that simple.


from openmindopenheart dialogues Scott Morrison

GOODBY 05

The aspects of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.
~Ludwig Wittgenstein

When I'm here
you don't come
when I'm gone
there's just you

Steve Toth

LISTENING TO YOU

You feel like an imposter
because you are one
We all are
Imposters
posing as separate beings

We don't need to know
all the services
we're performing
at any given moment
So we don't

When you become
a lover
everything you do
becomes
what a lover does

Steve Toth

A HOLIDAY CARD FROM MYRIAM

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lagoa
Christmas Tree, a floating megastructure standing 82 meters
tall over the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon in Rio de Janeiro, has
become a holiday tradition for thousands of tourists visiting
the city from all over the world. Considered the largest
floating Christmas Tree in the world by the Guinness Book
of Records, the tree has been assembled for 10 straight
years, with $1.1 million in funds provided by Grupo Bradesco
Seguros e Previdencia. Since its opening on Nov. 26, the tree
has attracted 80,000 people a day to the area surrounding the
lagoon. The tree, the third most important tourist attraction
in Rio de Janeiro after Carnival and Reveillon (end-of-year
celebrations), will remain lit until January 6.
Close to 600,000 tourists, including 300,000 foreigners, are
expected in Rio de Janeiro to participate in Reveillon this year.



















The Christmas tree is supported by 11 floating steel
marine blocks, forming a 810 square meter base bearing
the tree's 450-ton weight. 2,228KVA of power are required
to light the tree. Candles, wheat stalks andChristmas tree
balls (traditionally used on Christmas dinner table
arrangements) adorns the tree. 2.8 million small lights and
35,000 meters of rope lights are also used. The Christmas
tree is 82 meters tall, the equivalent of a 27-story building,
and can be seen from anywhere around the Rodrigo de
Freitas Lagoon.



This year, the Christmas tree features water ballet.
Every day at 8 p.m., spectators will marvel at the
beauty of water in movement, with lighting and color
effects. Forty-eight pumps positioned around the tree
shoot jets of water 20 meters up into the air. On
weekends, the water shows are enhanced by music,
and are presented every half hour from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

IF

if you distance yourself
only for an hour
from your endless thoughts
what do you think will happen

if you let yourself sink
just like a fish
into the ocean of our love
what do you think will happen

you are merely
a piece of straw
and we are
that eternal amber

if you leap forth
from your lowly house
to fuse with the amber
what do you think will happen

a hundred times
you've promised yourself
to depart from self-claim
to be humble as earth

only for once
if you keep your word
what do you think will happen

you're a precious
hidden diamond
sunken in the mud

if you wash away
all that impurity
from your gorgeous face
what do you think will happen

if you abandon
for a little while
your ego and greed
tear down your shield
rise with a quest
to unite with the divine
what do you think will happen

-- Ghazal (ode) 844
Translated by Nader Khalili
"Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
Cal-Earth Press, 1994

A hypocrite is a person who--but who isn't?
- Don Marquis
- Also more here...

The trees of the forest silently await God's blessing.

The law of gravitation is working from two sides:
from the side of the earth which draws all that
belongs to the earth, and from the side of the spirit
which attracts the soul towards it. Even those who
are unconscious of this law of gravitation are also
striving for perfection, for the soul is being continually
drawn towards the spirit. They are striving for
perfection just the same. In the small things of everyday
life a man is never satisfied with what he has. He
always wants more and more, be it a higher rank,
wealth, or fame. He is always striving for this.

This shows that the heart is like a magic bowl.
However much you pour into it, it only becomes deeper.
It is always found to be empty. The reason why man is
never satisfied is that he is unconsciouslystriving for
perfection. Those however who strive consciously after
perfection have a different way. Nevertheless, each atom
of the universe is meant to struggle and strive in order to
become perfect one day. In other words, if a seer happens
to be in the mountains he will hear the mountains cry
continually, 'We are waiting for that day when something
in us will awaken. There will come a day of awakening,
of unfoldment. We are silently awaiting it.' If he went
into the forest and saw the trees standing there they
would tell him that they too were waiting patiently.
One can feel it. The more one sits there the more one
feels that the trees are waiting for the time when there
will be an unfoldment. So it is with all beings. But man is so
absorbed in his everyday actions and his greed that he
seems to be unaware of that innate desire for unfoldment.
It is his everyday tasks, his avariciousness, his cruelty to
other beings, that keep him continually occupied, and that
is why he cannot hear the continual cry of his own soul to
awaken, to unfold, to reach upward, to expand, and to go
towards perfection.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

TODAY a turning point

There is nothing to explain.
There is no answer, nor any
legitimate question.

When old Yu was asked about the One
he got up and walked out of the room.

Sitting here I feel a comfort in knowing
there is nothing to know.

How do I know?

Is it just the end of the questions?
That the wondering was extinquished,
snuffed out in the silence?

Such ponderings can lay fallow,
waiting for the ages to leaven them.
There is no need to clarify any of this.

What is defunct is defunct, past,
utterly gone.

Yet the meanderings of the mind still
play in the wind.

There is no harm in that.
And if there were, what could be done?

Nothing matters, and yet the simplicity
of the play of these musings
unravels as it will.

Need for justification too is defunct.

Such is real freedom.

Bill
a great master

BELOVED FOOL

Pause for a moment,
come closer -- beloved fool.

Is it because you found me among gods
that you rattle bones and dance around fires?
Never was I right or left, high or low, within or without,
yet you say I am the 'unity of things'.

Look! While you search clouds and stars
I am the eye within your eyes.
As you cry out I am the sound of your voice,
your hearing within hearing.

You reach for book, holy cup, bell and flame,
yet I am the touch within touch,
scent within scent,
savor within savor.

Ten thousand miles you walk to the sacred well,
yet all the while I am the sandals on your feet,
and the brief emptiness between your strides
I fill with suns and moons.

See, hear?
The lover's tune is playing again
in the springs beneath your busy mind.
The lamp still burns in your shadows, unseen.

Come home, beloved fool --
come home.

Frank Gorin
1997

West Wind #2

You are young.









So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life toward it.

~ Mary Oliver ~

THERE'S NOTHNG TO BELIEVE

"This silence, this moment, every moment, if it's genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There's nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, 'Be more silent.' Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you've died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence." ~Rumi

SOMETHING FOR TERRY

Thanksgiving day I met a new friend, shared a sample plate of a wonderful Thanksgiving Feast she had prepared, AND shared a Who and Where we are on this journey.
Later that evening after returning home this bit from a longer work by this unknown Sufi poet came in the mail and rather summed up the primary subject of a remarkable conversation after a remarkable meal with a remarkable Mystic.



I sought her from myself,
she was there all along;
how strange that I
had concealed her from me.

I kept going back and forth
with her, within myself --
my senses drunk,
her beauties, my wine --

Setting out
from certain knowledge
to its source and truth,
reality my quest,

Calling to myself from me
to guide me by my voice
to that part of me
lost in my search.

Me begging me
to raise the screen
by lifting up the veil,
for I was my only means to me.

I was gazing
into the mirror of my beauty
to see the perfection of my being
in my contemplation of my face,

And mouthing my name, I listened
and leaned toward me,
looking to one who could make me hear
mention of me in my voice,

Placing my hands
upon my heart,
hoping to hold me
there in my embrace,

Rising toward my breaths
pleading they would pass by me
that I might find
me there.

Until a flash appeared
from me to my eye;
the break of my dawn shone clear,
my dark sky disappeared.

There, where reason recoils,
I arrived,
and my bond and union
reached to me from myself.

Then I glowed in joy,
as I attained to me
with a certainty that spared me
from my journey's hard ride.

I led myself to me
after I called me back;
my soul my means,
my guide to me.

When I pulled away
the curtains of sensuous disguise
brought down
by the mysteries of wisdom,

I raised the screen from my soul
by lifting up the veil,
and so it answered
my question.

I had rubbed the rust of my attributes
from the mirror of my being,
and it was encircled
with my beaming rays,

And I summoned me to witness me
since no other existed
in my witness
to rival me.

My mentioning my name
made me hear it in my recollection
as my soul, negating sense,
said my name and listened.

I hugged myself --
but not by wrapping arms around my ribs --
that I might embrace
my identity.

I inhaled my spirit,
while the air of my breath
perfumed scattered ambergris
with fragrance,

All of me free
from the dual quality of sensation,
my freedom within,
I, one with my essence.

Shaykh Umar Ibn al-Farid
from The Poem of the Sufi Way


The poetry of Shaykh Umar Ibn al-Farid is considered by many to be the pinnacle of Arabic mystical verse, though suprisingly he is not widely known in the West. (Rumi and Hafiz, probably the best known in the West of the great Sufi poets, both wrote primarily in Persian, not Arabic.) Ibn al-Farid's two materpieces are The Wine Ode, a beautiful meditation the "wine" of divine bliss, and The Poem of the Sufi Way, a profound exploration of spiritual experience along the Sufi Path and perhaps the longest mystical poem composed in Arabic.

When he was a young man Ibn al-Farid would go on extended spiritual retreats among the oases outside of Cairo, but he eventually felt that he was not making deep enough spiritual progress. He abandoned his spiritual wanderings and entered law school.

One day Ibn al-Farid saw a greengrocer performing the ritual Muslim ablutions outside the door of the law school, but the man was doing them out of the prescribed order. When Ibn al-Farid tried to correct him, the greengrocer looked at him and said, "Umar! You will not be enlightened in Egypt. You will be enligthened only in the Hijaz, in Mecca..."

Umar Ibn al-Farid was stunned by this statement, seeing that this simple greengrocer was no ordinary man. But he argued that he couldn't possibly make the trip to Mecca right away. Then the man gave Ibn al-Farid a vision, in that very moment, of Mecca. Umar Ibn al-Farid was so transfixed by this experience that he left immediately for Mecca and, in his own words, "Then as I entered it, enlightenment came to me wave after wave and never left."

Although hailed throughout the Muslim world as one of the great spiritual classics, Ibn al-Farid's Poem of the Sufi Way has also been controversial because in it he refers to the Beloved -- God -- as "her," rather than in the more traditional masculine gender.

I sought her from myself,
she was there all along;
how strange that I
had concealed her from me.

These lines say so much. Spiritual seekers tend to look everywhere for the Divine -- by visiting holy places and teachers, through spiritual practices and austerities, through service -- but at a certain point we are surprised to discover that "she was there all along." The Divine, the living sacred source, is discovered to be present within us, within this very moment -- and most surprising of all, we recognize that It has always been there, that we have never been separate or apart from It. In truth, God is found to be the very Self of our self; we could never possibly be apart from That. Yet, how could we have missed this overwhelming truth of our own being? How could we have thought we were separate from God? "How strange that I / had concealed her from me."

There is so much depth and splendor in this selection from The Poem of the Sufi Way. The only other thing I'll point out is the general theme Ibn al-Farid here plays with: the psychic dilemma of how the dualistic state of the lover melts into the nondual unity of the Beloved. It is a dilemma because the normal consciousness can't conceive of it even when it is directly experienced. What can one say about "self" and "God" when the veil has been lifted and the two pour into each other as one?

To try to put this into the conceptualized world of words becomes farcical, and Ibn al-Farid plays mastefully with this:

Calling to myself from me
to guide me by my voice
to that part of me
lost in my search.

And what a perfect summation, the final line of this selection:

I, one with my essence.

Ivan Granger

END OF HOT WATER STORAGE

"Pulsar Advanced Technologies has announced that, starting next week, they will launch the MK4, a microwave-powered on-demand water heater. Why is this cool? Well, until now, you had two options: electric heaters that keep a large amount of water hot at all times, or natural gas heaters that heat up water on-demand. The first is very costly and wasteful, and the second is not available to everyone, especially those in rural areas. You can't heat water up quickly enough with conventional resistance-based electric elements, as it would require huge amount of electricity. Not so with microwaves. The Vulcanus MK4 can heat water from 35 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees Fahrenheit in seconds and can source multiple applications at once: showers, dishwasher, sink usages and more.
Hat tip Slashdot...

OH LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER

STRYKER STRYKES

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I have never seen a Party so full of shit when it comes to supporting the military. They fight wars on the cheap and get people killed unnecessarily, instead of fighting with everything we’ve got under a coherant and cohesive strategy that ensures military victory. They let domestic politics trump military necessity, preferring to lie and shift the blame rather than address the problems and solve them like real men. They care about image rather than substance, empty rhetoric instead of courage, mediocrity instead of excellence, and machiavellian maneuvering instead of strong moral character. They have demonstrated nothing but contempt for us and for those that have served honorably in the past. They play us for suckers and weep crocodile tears at our deaths as their stock values rise. They are strangers to integrity and completely bereft of the basic values that we hold dear. They are without honor. They can go to hell.
If this is what Republicans mean by 'supporting the troops,' then they can by all means support the insurgents. (If they did,) We'd have a free and democratic Iraq by the end of the year."
by Stryker at DIGITAL WARFARE...
hat tip DAILY DISH...