Simple and Profound

I keep losing any way of orienting myself in Life. It's very odd, and it just keeps catapulting me into this utter simple way of seeing things.

With all the recent events online (and I really paid attention to it all), I kept thinking that I would find orientation through these events. I kept thinking that I would find the energy to take a stand against the hate and fascism that is being revealed (it's been there all along, folks). But even though I felt repulsion through witnessing the disturbing events online, I couldn't find myself feeling that I could see only one point of view. I could also see that the perpetrators had their own reality, and they were living in it. They were living their life through their own orientation of seeing things. And this is what everyone that is still living in any kind of trance state does, they orientate themselves. With everything. All the time. So, my own take on these events doesn't feel like sentiment, it feels like a fact. It doesn't mean that I condone this behavior; I am deeply saddened by it. But throughout history, human consciousness has been orienting itself, and causing heaps and heaps of conflict and suffering. As long as there is orientation, there will be another side of seeing. Only now, in our lifetime (at least 60 years old and younger), it's in our front yard.

I know what living through orienting feels like. My mind still tries to do it sometimes. Only consciousness has awakened enough to not be fooled by it. I can't buy into it...there isn't any energy to create any orientation, or if it happens, it doesn't last long. It becomes too uncomfortable for the Infinite to become finite in how it sees the world.

And this is what happens when we do try to create an orientation. We are becoming fixed and limited in our perceptions. We, as the Infinite are squeezed into a very small way of seeing things. And that's OK. It's useful, in fact. It's useful because we use these orientations as the means with which we, as consciousness, awakens. Consciousness, or the Infinite reality, realizes that it has been coerced into seeing with a finite lens, which isn't its true nature.

I remember the story about when Amma was a young girl, and her very own brother was trying to kill her. He didn't like how she was behaving with strangers (loving and hugging and such), and so he continually plotted to have her killed. Only all the attempts kept failing. And one young man that tried to stab her ended up having mortal wounds himself by the very same knife (some other force caused the knife to bounce off Amma and enter him). So, as the young man lay dying in the hospital, Amma herself went and hand-fed him, consoling him and loving him. She knew that he could only act through his own orientation. She didn't try to make him change his viewpoint. She saw him being the only way he could be, and the young man, through being in the presence of that powerful clarity, was transformed. His orientation fell away. And he died in peace.

Not having orientation doesn't make us complacent, or unaffected. Nor do we allow everything to just be as it is. The radical clarity that comes from an absence of orientation allows us to be moved into words or action if needed, because we are being guided by the underlying peace that is there when orientation is absent. We might find ourselves deeply concerned about the state of affairs, and what might become of our world. Witnessing the events in the world may cause us deep pain and sorrow. But even that doesn't take away our deepest connection to source, as Self.

Not seeing the world through any orientating lens is simple. Life comes in. Everything comes in real close, touching us deeply. Carrying us with it....eternally.

An Opened Heart

There is a beautiful, organic process that takes place when we continue choose, to know what's True, before anything else. Of course, by choosing to know what is True, we are allowing a new perspective to take place in our being. And even though this is what we are looking for, maybe even hoping for, there is another deeper, unseen event taking place each time we choose.

When we choose Truth, our heart-our spiritual hearts-which is our true nature in our body, is opened. Each time we allow ourselves to choose what is True, we are in essence choosing our own heart. And this is vital. Our hearts need to open, to get really large to absorb the habits and tendencies of our old perceptions.

And when we completely fall in Love with what is True, we are, again, falling in Love with our own heart. It may not feel like it-in fact, we may at first deny our own heart's divinity, yet, as our heart is opened it begins to reveal itself. And each time we fall in Love with Truth, our own heart responds, by opening.

Some of you may know what I am speaking of. Maybe you have experienced some rather large heart openings. It can be quite wonderful, and powerful. What is happening, each time the heart is opened up, again and again, is one of the most essential parts of our unfoldment.

Because it is this opened heart, that brings the mind back home.

We all know how tenacious and distracted the mind can be. And also how full of ideas, projections, judgements and fears it harbors. That's a lot of stuff.

But what if the heart were able to accommodate the mind and all its luggage. What if there is, within the open heart, an innate capacity to bring the mind home. Like a wild dog on a leash. And when the dog-mind gets too tired, the leash shortens a bit. And then, one day, the dog-mind recognizes that the leash is the security that its been looking for, and starts to return home to the heart with just a little tug on the leash. And then there comes a point, when there might not need to be a tug, or a leash, because the mind has found its true abode.

Getting accustomed to Emptiness

It is so easy to believe something external is going to help sustain us. Like there is something outside of our own connection to the Divine that is going to help us in our life. We've been taught this, and we've held onto hope that someday, our finances are going to improve, or our health is going to improve, or job is going to get easier, or our relationships are going to provide fulfillment. Or we are going to get enlightened...

These are all places where we invest hope. And this hope exists in the future. And the small person that has this hope, is inextricably linked to this hope in the future.

And when, through the years, none of these things give us what we want, this small person may begin to feel all kinds of stuff. From depression, hopelessness, despair, or the old "why bother....". This is natural to the small self (who is being dissolved through not getting what it hopes for....)

It is very important that we recognize that this is taking place in our being. For this dissolution is preparing us for a deeper way of Being. A way of Life that is not dependent upon hope-where there is an absence of reliance on anything other than the Divine Reality.

This is a process, of course. It is extremely rare to find ourselves completely reliant on the Divine. As soon as our health starts to fail, we will see how connected we are to our True Nature. As soon as our money runs out, where are we looking for support? When our old friends move on, how are we dealing with our aloneness? These kinds of circumstances are helpful to see where we are still placing our reliance, and if it is working for our evolution.

Because sooner or later, we will have to let go of all exterior reliance. The Beloved is calling us to Her, for everything. And the Beloved is empty...empty of hope. She doesn't exist in the future, because She is not of the mind. The Beloved, who wants all of you, is only in this moment. And because She holds no promise of any outcome, letting go to this emptiness is like falling free without a net to catch us. The bottom-- of our need to rely on ANYTHING-- is falling out.