Become the Sky

by Rumi

Inside this new love,
die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You’re covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side.
Die,
and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign
that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running from silence.
The speechless full moon comes out now.

Notice how in this poem “Become the Sky” by Jalal ad-Din Rumi, a Sufi mystic, born in what is now Afghanistan he doesn’t say there are conditions for this freedom or that there are special ones who “get it”, for you already are that freedom.

He simply says - find it right in this very moment

Be in agreement with “What Is”

There’s no-thing apart from “This” and if you are not in agreement with “This”, you are not in agreement with life, with “What Is”. And that it’s a state of craziness, because you can’t change “What Already Is”.

All that is required is to be in agreement with “What Is”.

Instead of looking for concepts like God, enlightenment, awakening, bliss, align yourself with “This” and be Ok with it, whether it is working your way or not, and you can’t help but find God, Enlightenment awakening, bliss and everything else you are looking for.

When the infinitely spacious clear sky opens its mouth to laugh, it swallows the whole world.

Q&A

Q: Even though I understand that mindfulness is a mind practice, can’t it just prepare the ground by settling the mind?

A: I am not against meditation but I align myself with Nisargadatta’s advice on meditation “Do it if you are doing it and don’t do it if you are not”. If you feel called to meditate then honour that impulse. And if you have no interest in it right now, don’t do it, which doesn’t mean be lazy and do nothing.

If you feel inclined to meditate, by all means do it but keep it simple. In the end, meditation is simple. Sit down and let everything be as it is. Any attempt to manipulate just interferes with the natural state of true meditation

As awareness settles in itself, some energetic and physical experiences may occur. You may experience rushes of energy up your spine, your centre of awareness shifts from your forehead to the back of the head or even the heart or stomach. You may experience strong or subtle vibrations throughout the body, giving rise to bliss.

Be careful not to interpret these states as meaning that awakening has occurred. These are just energetic experiences which come and go. But you always remain, as the unshakable presence awareness in which all experiences appear and disappear.

Q&A

Q: I study with a prominent spiritual teacher, and have been practicing with him for a few years. His advice is to keep the attention as much as possible on consciousness by asking yourself every time you are distracted “what am I giving my attention to?”

A: This spiritual practice of asking “what am I giving my attention to?” ” will help you train you away from the habit of getting lost in the mind, but eventually you must realize that even the attention itself is a phenomenon that must be abandoned.

Even the attention, our greatest instrument of perception, is just another fiction. Yes, attention helps to bring other objects into your perception, but the act of giving attention is also perceived by the awareness presence that is you.

What is it that knows attention?

The presence of attention or the absence of attention is noticed by the awareness. Behind the attention is something more simple, without effort, subtle – something that was there before the attention. What is that?

This is where you must do away with answers – intellectual, mental or verbal. Here only direct experience will do. No words can describe it. Descriptions are only thoughts that move through it.

Everything is witnessed by you. Everything that we see: you, me, the world, the problems, the solutions, are all before you, before that consciousness, before that awareness. You are witnessing this screen of consciousness and that which flows through the screen of consciousness. But who is the witness of awareness itself? Do you understand what I am saying?

You need not answer, for the answer is not necessary. If you come up with an answer, it’s useless.

How uncomfortable

to say even that.

As if I know anything

about anything,

whatsoever.

Maybe, if I whisper

without speaking….

It’s…

Body-mind, Awareness and Consciousness

Q: How do the body-mind, awareness and consciousness relate to one another?

A: Awareness is timeless and eternal, and this gives birth to consciousness. Consciousness is the background for the appearance of the body-mind.

Awareness is what perceives what the consciousness is doing, as it appears and disappears. Just as all objects, including the body-mind are registering in consciousness, so is consciousness in presence-awareness.

The pristine awareness is the basis for consciousness, and consciousness is the basis for all other objects that are perceived by the body-mind.
Consciousness is just a ripple, a wave arising and setting as a vibration or pulsation of presence-awareness. In that ripple, worlds, beings and everything appears and disappears endlessly. This is where all your perceptions of the world appear.

But ultimately all that is, is presence-awareness and consciousness is only a modification of itself.

First you see that you are not the body-mind and identify with the conscious presence or witness perceiving everything. But then you realize from this vantage point, that this is just your universal body, the body of the Absolute and you realize that what you truly are is that which is beyond your consciousness.

You as presence-awareness exist regardless of whether you are conscious or not, it is not limited to any particular state of consciousness, brightly present, untouched by any appearances but intimately connected to all of them, because you realize they are all an expression of you, in fact they are you.

It is your nature, and therefore cannot help but be present no matter what the appearance. It is not affected by any surface appearance. In this very moment, this is all you are. Your true nature exists before anything, before everything. It existed even before your consciousness.

Reincarnation

Q: What do you believe concerning reincarnation?

ANSWER: Within the realm of appearances, and while one believes oneself to be a separate individual, there are endless concepts, beliefs, ideas and doctrines. These ideas are engaging to those seeing themselves as separate seekers because they provide a plausible explanation for their separate existence.

This all occurs at the mind’s level, which delights in providing answers, and questions that explore the particulars of everything in existence. But all of this body of supposed knowledge is speculative.

Are we really born? Are we encased in this body somewhere? Do we know conclusively that who we are ever dies? And what, if anything, is left over to reincarnate?

There is no real need to try to investigate, prove or disprove all the various mechanics and theories concerning reincarnation, but it is important to remember that through it all, only awareness exists and everything is that.

Remember that there is no separate entity that is the “I/me”. In the realm of appearance, you (as a separate individual entity) don’t exist. The “I” is seen to be absent. How can something that doesn’t exist, reincarnate?  So what is it that reincarnates? Perhaps physical matter can be recycled; maybe thought energy can be used again. But you remain as you are. You are like a bottomless sea, infinite and eternal. Your presence is timeless.

If the ocean gives rise to waves, which then change into other waves, then that is fine but the thing to remember is that the waves do not exist separately from the sea. It is all water, and it all returns to water. The water does not change.

Instead of wasting time wondering what one was in a previous life or what one will be in the next life, why don’t you investigate what you are right now?

Stop.

Allow yourself to drop back in,

back to this.

Let it speak to you.

 

Let it touch you.

Look to this.

Let yourself disappear,

dissolve, into this.

 

Infinite, eternal,

vast beyond measure . . .

Stay here. Rest here. Live here.

This is who you truly are.

 

This is all that is.

Breathing itself into all forms,

moment by moment.

 

Everything around you

is projecting out of this,

and here you are . . .

 

How can this be?

It can’t.

It’s quite impossible.

But it is.

Mmmmmmm . . .

Being just "That"

however enlightening

is still living in the prison of duality.

I am not separate from this "Illusion"

this most beautiful arising manifestation.

I am not simply THAT, I am also … THIS!

Both This and That

Neither This or That,

I Am.

Neither the perceiver,

or the perceived.

For both exist in and as me.

HAA! This is Freedom!

Both God and the ego dancing within You,

as You, never touching You.

Does this sound exalted, lofty, arrogant?

Laughter bursts forth, huge, unbridled, free.

What a rude boisterous fool?!

You are the infinite espression

of a shimmering endless Ocean

lightining Itself to see Itself,

to taste Itself . . .

You ebb and flow with the Oceans’ tide

and every wave, every ripple is your dancing

the moon and stars bathe in your radiance

and the night sky envelopes you.