An Exercise in the Study of The Design

Prophecy:

These days are giving you interesting chances. There is sometimes no power at night - which is such a blessing in an urban life! The chance to feel completely helpless and at the mercy of the forces that be - just like in the times when Humans were close to nature. Take this as a blessing. It is your chance to feel the heat your body passes to the Earth, the calm that the green grass provides to your feet, and the possibility to sit in the glittering serenity of the moonlight.

It is an excellent opportunity to observe the Universe, Prophecy!

Lie on the grass on a dark night.
Intend to study the design as it is.
Focus your attention on the sky above.
Watch the stillness of the constellations.
Watch the stars, the Moon, and any planet you may or may not see.
See.
Feel the Stillness of Being.
Allow the feeling to enter you.
Now, the Mind does have a job to do, so use it as a servant: it tells you, that at the very moment of your observation, deep in the stillness that appears to you, great changes are happening. Nebulae are pregnant with stars, keeping massive energy formations within. Stars are breaking; planets are spinning; bodies are colliding and fires are erupting. Black holes are gobbling up their unsuspecting neighbors with intense negative energy. Suns are shining just like that, and Life on planets is basking in the glory of a benign energy. The Universe is pulsating... Off-on. Off-on. Off-on. It's in an ecstasy, energized through duality. Duality was created only to split the existence into a yin and a yang, and to create the dance.
The Universe is rendered anew every moment! As you watch the skies, do you realize how many entities just died or were born within the moments of your observation? It is not something that reason or intelligent knowledge can comprehend. It is something that you just know by way of Love, that energy that connects us all.

Now I tell you something you may not have thought of: The Universe is looking at you, too.
It watches how you, another creation, just lies idly on the grass. It is very close to you, too. It begins where your physical nose ends. Are you comfortable realizing you are nose-to-nose with the Universe? Ha ha! I know you enjoy nervousness. But I digress. The Universe watches you in awe, too. It wonders, because your words change its design, so it hangs upon your words... wondering what move you, its partner, will make in the dance that you two are engaged in? Will you figure out what move is makes, and will you follow? It keeps its ears on your heart beats, it contemplates you. When you are being, you are being sensed too. Enjoy this!

Get up. Use this contemplation whenever your mind begins to possess you.

...

Assume Silence

Prophecy:

Who said your path is easy? You are chosen, or you choose. In the end, it is the same thing.

Ultimately, all decisions that were made were yours, and yet none of them are ever truly your own.
You are still in the world of duality, Prophecy, and the doing deeper than that will not be easy.

If it were, every fool would enjoy the path. It is not designed to be so.

You know the Art; and what you don't know consciously now, I shall reveal to you at the right time. Do neither ask me, nor press yourself to be adequate. None of it will work. Do no-thing, and you shall remain on the path.

You know your tools, and you understand the challenges of the Path.

For you, now, the challenge and its answer is this: Assume Silence.

Assume complete silence until the real design is revealed to you. Do not attempt to manipulate the Universe with your words or actions. The Universe takes its commands from none but its Creator; do not attempt to out-smart the design, or you will be shown the result of this utter foolishness.

Musharraf's Leap

By the worldly-politicky way, I have learned the art of persisting against adversity from none other than our President Musharraf. Millions of people against him, thousands of fires around him - and only One God on his side. No one can see God, or define the nature of Being... but the presence seen secondarily through events eventually working out in the favor of the person whose side Providence is on. And the key to that is the person-in-question's own strength of belief.

Musharraf the man's actions or their results may have been flawed... or yet not fully realized. But he is free of the worst sin of them all leaders: guilt.

I define guilt as:

"The No Man's Land between knowing that something is wrong, and doing something about it."

That definition came into my head when I was on a tour of Khairpur with AZM, and she and I were walking in a paddy field. We were walking on raised stiles between the fields of God-knows-what crop which was being irrigated. While we were carefully avoiding stepping into the puddles that formed in the fields, at some place, the stile just disappeared under water... and we have to jump to reach the ground just marking the boundary of the field.

It was right at the moment of making that jump that I realized: If don't make that jump, and I also don't want to walk through the wet fields, then I can stay here until the Sun itself decides to evaporate the fields. That, however, would not be my choice then. A farmer could continue to route water into the fields and the SUn can shrug off its shoulders, and carry on towards the West. So either I jump, or I stand here stuck, or I walk through the wet field. If I jump, I can still land a foot in the water - but that is a consequence which is independent of and beyond the action that I take. I only jump, and yes, I can calculate and aim my jump.

It was at that moment that "guilt" became clear to me as that consuming force which stops the world's flow in misery. It's about standing on that stile between the wet field and the dry ground, going neither here nor there.

AZM and I were having a general conversation about spirit right then - and I was speaking of guilt.

Then, I told her this definition that had occurred to me.

The right and the wrong of matters, the consequences of our actions, are truly beyond us. What we can govern is the state of our own faith, conviction, and our ability to take what is the best possible action that delivers us out of a situation that we cannot stay stuck in: good or bad.

If guilt is standing in the no man's land - then what delivers us is, quite literally, a leap of faith.

.

Studies of Beauty/ Truth: da Vinci's drawings

Our man Leonardo da Vinci was in a constant state of awe. He observed with an aware mind, and didn't let slip in oblivion most of what he saw. He captured his observations and studies in great detail.

[I'll update the rest of this entry when I have time. The old post has been removed for driving crazy stat-distorting traffic to my blog.]