Prayer for Today, March 28th, 2009

Liberate the human who lives within my heart! 

~ Dancing With the Universe ~

My dear God of Awe! 

Today, I have looked at the Universe in utter fascination! Today I have danced with it so fluidly!  

  

Reams of my self have unfolded from within me! I twirl, and unfurl! And unfurl ~ And unfurl ~ ~ ~  

   

Everything, every word, every thought seems to have a singular imprint on it. It all seems to be I. It speaks to me as One, and I? 

I don't speak at all. It is not my place to speak, but to listen. I have spoken enough. I must now, only, watch in wonder. 

  

Which I do, I do! 

Making a Decision

Dear Self:

Let's make the decision today. Right now, about this life... about this ever-branching life.

You know the path that has your heart on it. Shall you, or shall you not take it?

If you cannot make up the mind about the path of the heart, then pray, honor this confusion. Take a moment. Take a deep breath. Write about it. See where the writing leads your soul. Never be afraid to explore your own "Yes" and "No". This is the only choice you have.

Enjoy the process of arriving at your decision, much as you would experience the joy that the decision, once made, will bring you.

The Tao of Being

I was going to make a wish, but that is foolish. One must enjoy their contract of being.  

The Deception of Phenomena

Dear Self:

Do not let phenomenon lie to you. Do not let good or bad actions deceive you.

The true measure of a human's quality is their character.

If character is well, all is well. Whatever they did, wherever they wandered -- all that brought them to where blessing is: in upright character.

If the character is ill, whatever that has preceded in their life has been in vain.

And those who show illness of character -- leave them. Leave them all no matter their numbers and ranks. Leave them without fear, regret, or remorse.

Now what does 'leave' mean?

It means:

- stay away from

- detach from

- do not take the burden of

- let be

- part company from or association with
- etc.

Some people we can physically or transactionally 'leave', some people we leave in the sense of giving up on them. Letting them be to their devices.

Why do I warn you? Because character elicits character in humans. Who you are with, makes you.

Be made well, because you shall in turn make another.

Watch your heart; watch all signs of illness in it closely. Where does it come from? Inquire upon yourself.

No! It is never old-fashioned or foolish to practice this. This is the only thing of worth you can achieve in life by your own work. Aspire to it.

Honor yourself, your heart, your space. Honor another, their heart, their space. Honor yourself, your heart, your space.

This is how it is.

Sleep well. ~

Honor -- Part 2: What is Honor?

So, if honor is nothing more than our fragile attempt at earnestly, carefully holding the flowing waters of life in our hands ... watching them slip and flow on and on as we manage to lift our hands up every now and then to our parched lips and take a few sips of that water of life -- if this is all that this is, then I wonder why my heart is aching at all?  

 

If I have just witnessed someone I trusted with a confidence, behaving somewhat dishonorably, perhaps I must have sympathy. Their hands are trembling, grappling at what water must flow and belong to another... and this shows the insecurity of their inner state of affairs. Who snatches water from the hands of another without, ultimately, coming to the realization of the futility of it? Can you pinch water? No. It is a flow, it is held in our hands only when they are still, and bound together in humility. Never otherwise. 

 

Whosoever attempted to snatch the flow harmed themselves first, and then, to an extent, harmed another -- eventually never ending up with anything themselves. What shame!  

 

I am, therefore, not a snatcher. If I snatch from another, I snatch from my own right to hold. I snatch moments from my own life that could have been beautiful. 

 

Of course I only manage it to the best of my flawed ability. I have been tempted, I have doubted, I have washed my hands of my own affair in order to find another.... but I have always been returned to the condition of my own humility.  

 

As these words get written themselves, I am realizing what I have always felt honor to mean. 

 

Practicing honor is one's ability to withhold oneself from behaving in any way that harms another, that takes from another. 

 

Only I can truly withhold myself from the desire to take what rightfully belongs to another, for even if my body is chained, my heart can keep an evil intent. And if I am put to death, I would have died in a state of holding that desire. 

 

Now what is evil? 

 

Evil is to act as though one is separate from the rest of existence.  

 

It is only this which enables one to behave in any of those innumerable ways that humans identify as "evil." It is not the action itself that is evil, rather the thought that went behind it. Which is why, when someone gets in an accident because their car slipped on ice and killed a pedestrian, they are not held accountable. One who sped past red lights and ran into oncoming traffic, that one is held accountable for behaving as though they were not a part of the traffic. 

  

Honor -- Part 1: How to Live With Life

A few moments ago, the idea of "honor" grabbed my attention. A reel of thoughts and stories from my life played in my mind, and I was able to look back at a few incidents through the lens of honor, or, its evil twin, dishonor.  

In no certain order, I thus blog what came to my mind.  

I don't know what honor really means, but I know that I treat myself with it. Closely linked to the word "honor" in my mind is an image of holding something up in outstretched palms, holding it delicately like we'd hold water in our hands, preventing it from falling. And now as I write this analogy I realize that none can prevent water from slipping between our fingers. Perhaps, honor here is not water -- that flow of events -- but the act of honor itself is to hold your hands together in this humility.  

So truly, I realize, I cannot hold flowing water in my hands. What I can do is to earnestly put my hands together, and lap up whatever water that is ordained for me. Only that is what matters, and that is what is honor and honorable: the intent with which I cup my hands together. Only in this way I know how humble my existence; how tremendously it is at the mercy of everything; how fragile is it nobility.  

I am glad I am writing this down, because my heart was aching. I experienced the evil twin, dishonor, a few moments ago. 

And now that I see how fragile honoring the flowing waters of life is, I can write -- perhaps with some necessary detachment -- about what I feel. I want to write down a few random stories. 

A Trillion Billion Friends

It's 4:28 AM. I am not up & writing at these desperate hours because life is fun and I want to sit in front of a screen Facebooking & blog, blog, blogging my life away.  

I sit and write because there is something intense and compelling that I have been going through for years -- something that has done much to me and yet in the end, it has simply handed me a pen and commanded, "Write!"  

It is my life. It has been happening to me. And it wants to be written. (Therefore if there is an illusion amongst any of the readers that I do this to attract any further "life (drama!)" -- especially one that is not mine -- then, pray, know that I don't. I don't want to know any more or to think anymore. My writing isn't to create turbulence or catastrophe. It is to reach stillness. It is not to gain, but to give. That is all I have: nothing!) 

And now this thought was parenthetical because it is an aside. As can be noted, the subject at hand is "Friends."  

I felt, a mere three days ago, that I have no friend. Now whenever I confess to that particular feeling, it sends many of the dear people whose lives have served me and mine theirs in friendship, in considerable shock. Why am I writing this when this is not - what - I - intended - to - write! 

I write this because writing wants to be written. It takes its own course. It is because my heart is telling a story and I am the figurative pen, the literal keyboard. I have no command over this story. 

Now, for any dear soul which is confounded -- join the come & go club. At this moment, I am no longer in the club. I am not confounded myself. 

At this moment, my friends are countless. I tell you how so. 

I was retreating to my room for the night when I noticed the pillow and the covers on my bed ready to comfort me for the night. I stopped in amazement. What a human quality that is! To hold someone together, to cover them, to give them warmth. In some way, to aid their sleep. It is a quality so human, it is divine. I wondered. 

I looked around at things in my house. The chair I sit on, the cushions I lean on, this computer that aids me so greatly in my writing and living that I would have been dead without it -- and I mean it: this machine has saved my life. It has given me a life. I looked at my bed again, the clothes that I am arranging. Earlier, when the power went out, I chose to step out in the lawn, lie down on the grass, and bathe in moonlight. Question and Answer, the two curious kittens who reside in our garden, came and hopped over me. This is what they do; I am family to them. Question, indeed, insists upon a greater companionship -- hence the name. Together, Q&A as I affectionately call them, decidedly accompany wherever I go in the house. They want to offer enacting their kitten fights and -- yes, this too! -- giving their "clean-up licks" to me. I am part of their family, the Big Sistah Cat. They are kind enough to not see me as human, but as just another cat. 

I am touched. I am touched by what the plants do too. They dance when I am with them. Now every avid gardener knows but hides the eccentric fact that plants can understand (human) sound and respond. They also have a sense of visual attention. I am aware of their presence and their language; so well, that sometimes I forget to notice. 

It took a set of inanimate things this night to suddenly break this spell of feeling physically cut off, wandering, and alone. 

I have noticed tonight after a long, long, long time how everything is connected to me. It is connected to me, it is my friend. The thought that I am the product of all my life had been swirling in my mind like dusty little windwhirls on a summer afternoon. Now, I just get it. It's not a mental twirling thought. It is a fact. 

I am embraced. I am embraced by trillion-billion of atoms, certainly even more... all of them innumerable things. Expectations manage to lock in my attention on a few set of atoms, and often those are people. More often, those are not even these atoms, but thoughts. 

Cold as it may seem to think you are embraced by atoms -- for God's warm sake!! -- this is exactly what I mean. 

Warmth and life have a way of reaching to us. Through our beds and shoes and machines. It is a marvel how life holds us together. It is a marvel how care has a way of getting through to us, being around us. I simply marvel at all these things and the comfort of friendship they provide. I also marvel at how my life is designed such that everything makes me happen, makes me live. I marvel at how it all seems to be coming in my direction, placed around me, in an attitude of service and giving. 

This is really what it is!  

I also marvel at why my attention for years had become locked in a very few things! How long has it been since I have felt that it is not only other mere mortals who bring life to me? Quite a while.  

Tonight -- by this early morning that is about to come -- I have felt again that which is the truth: I am in the comfort of a Friend. And it is not a friend who isolates me into desperation. But makes me desperate until I see the marvel.  

Why, a rather persistent friendship this is, and one that gives me more than a calculable number of friends. It gives me as many friends as there are ways of counting everything in the world -- and then it gives me everything. 

What Is The Middle Path?

Dear Self:

I want to re-teach you something that you must remember, especially in these times when the illness in human hearts has come to surface; our potential energy becomes kinetic. That is, what was inside has now become apparent. Therefore, these are busy times.

I want to remind you of The Middle Path, and how this is the only path to welfare.

What is The Middle Path?

For long, it has been understood to be the total of good and bad divided over two.

This is impractical, and makes no sense. A mind can be lost over reasoning this out. This, in other words means, indecision. Indecision is an unhelpful act to everyone in the situation, for it stops the flow of events. Flow is life. Block is death.

Therefore, this is not what the Middle Path is.

The Middle Path is the ability to stay one's natural course, no matter the ebb and flow of events.

The word "middle" means to stay consistent whereas the two extremes are the ebb and the flow. Neither the ebb nor the flow are favorable or unfavorable -- it is only our selective perception which thinks so.

This is why humans have been invited to observe how everything in this existence modulates on those two extremes. From light waves to the currents of the ocean to the flow of day & night to pendulums that swing; from seasons to sleeping patterns to moods to energy for work; from tea and perfumes that make you active or sleepy to clothes that are meant for these contrary purposes too -- everything in the world remains in motion through fluctuating between two polarities. This is how your heart beats, too, or you will die if it only let blood flow as through a tap, or, well, stopped.

Human sickness is to assume either polarity as permanent. So we think that either aggressive or pacific behavior alone is the answer, forever, always.

But you se? Sometimes the times are so aggressive that life become impossible. Sometimes life is so pacified that useful ambitious flees from the hearts. So noither appraoch alone is the answer.

Life lies in between the ebb and flow.

The Middle Path is to remain consistent despite these fluctuations, even as we witness that the pendulum of humanity or events (ah, same thing!) has become stuck in one direction. To stay the middle course is not to resist, but to persist.

The real course that events take is that middle course -- just as light waves do. Neither do they remain stuck in the upper arc, nor the lower.

Now why do I remind you of this?

It is because the events of today have reaching a proportion and number so vast, the human mind cannot encapsulate them if we see things in terms of these events.

Forget the events, focus on the principal. Remember you life is to stay the middle course, and also know that the middle course is the shortest and the straightest path to welfare. This is not merely a religious or philosophical notion, this is a mathematical fact. No matter what your belief about the world may be, this is true. This is observable, morally or scientifically.

Stay the middle course, and stay on it with firmness.

I can tell you one thing then: you will surprised how the fluctuations will pass over or under you -- but no harm shall come to you. None.

Maintain quiet on the ebb and flow, and the middle ray of light will take you straight out of the darkness.

If you follow this, in this will you find both wisdom and liberation.

---

Reminder

Dear Allah:

You have very strange ways of reminding me that You alone are The
Friend. Oh the unreliablility of being!

_R

Rising Slowly [a poem]

THIS SIGH!

There is a sigh
Trapped
In the depth
Of my heart.
Like a bubble
Of fish breath
Under weighted tons
Of sea.

All I ask now
Of my Self
And my patience
Is to witness in silence
The slow upward rise
Of this bubble, this sigh.
This sigh,
This bubble sigh!

_Prophecy
March 02, 2009
1550 hr

My Other Way

Only to say, I feel alone, separate, and desolate. Because I think not like them.

~~~~~~~

OK dear blog, you must know. I just want to howl. Bloody well climb on a rooftop and ROAR my throat stupid. 

GHAAAAAA!!! AOOOOO!!!! HAOOWWWW HAOOWWWW HAOOWWWW!!! GRRRRR!!

Phew! Ok, that was good. Two animals inside me needed to GET OUT. The one, a fierce Lion. And the other, a desolate Wolf in the wilderness.

I feel two things at once. One, an intense sense of being alone. Of traveling with a pack where I am an outsider - because my heart is different; its nature is different; its song is solitary.

The other, a satisfaction. In the knowledge that indeed, my path is divergent in some fundamental way.

I could have been rebellious, except I am not rebellious against the situation, just because of it. There is something in the situation that tells me like a wise teacher to go away. Go my other way.

I somehow remember this feeling; it was mine since I was a child. This essential voice in the heart that gave up more and more of the given, and diverged, diverged, traveled its own path just to discover another land.

Such is the nature of discovery. It has a great deal of aloneness in it. 

I have, though, persisted.

And you know, I am profoundly and emptily (of intent)-fully (of heart) grateful that I persisted - until the Truth I saw in my heart, and they all saw in theirs, was finally revealed. And when it was, we were all, at once, at the same place. 

Except that I had come to that place the other way.