the prodigal

the prodigal

the father 

veils himself and

issues forth as

a prodigal seeking

peace and love

in a foreign place..

she suffers..not

finding after searching

with exuberance

among colorful attractions

of places and things..

in exhaustion she 

cries for help..and

grace is recognized

with joy as she

remembers:

I and my father

are one...

“The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son — when he started back home.” 

― O. Henry, The Green Door

  The Departure of the Prodigal Son

To go forth now
from all the entanglement
that is ours and yet not ours,
that, like the water in an old well,
reflects us in fragments, distorts what we are.

From all that clings 
like burrs and brambles--
to go forth
and see for once, close up, afresh,
what we had ceased to see--
so familiar it had become.
To glimpse how vast and how impersonal
is the suffering that filled your childhood.

Yes, to go forth, 
hand pulling away from hand.
Go forth to what? To uncertainty,
to a country with no connections to us
and indifferent to the dramas of our life.

What drives you to go forth? 
Impatience, instinct, a dark need, 
the incapacity to understand.

To bow to all this.
To let go--
even if you have to die alone.


Is this the start of a new life?

~~Rainer Maria Rilke

Understood spiritually, Lent is a time for preparation for Easter, 
which is not only a celebration of Jesus' resurrection, but a
reminder that we are summoned to leave behind that which
entombs us.  Attitudes like resentment, hatred, complaining, 
pessimism, worry, anger, pettiness, and gloom can be graves
in which we linger and languish for a lifetime.  Without 
realizing how it came about, we can find ourselves with at 
least one foot in graves that render us lifeless and in need
of resurrection...
~~Tom Stella, CPR For The Soul

Mind over Matter. (Bernardo Kastrup)

Scientific American:  Physics Pointing to Mind..Bernardo Kastrup
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/?fbclid=IwAR25yAGX0HcxTzpgOgMhEJ1JG6tmpRQC2LfGywVkMmn98pui9MiIvcusli8

Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap

This is the question 

all will soon

need to answer:

Have I closed the Gap..?

The Gap is the separation

remaining in our knowing of

our Oneness with Everything..

Writings are rife with many

depictions of attempts to

 balance spirit and matter

and other expressions of the 

seeming two dimensions of life..

Language conspires

 to hold our Gap open as 

 subject and object

hold their persuasion..

Leaving us with a 

measure of unease

as we nod our heads...

Congratulations to Tom Stella...!!!

Congratulations to Tom Stella...!!!
Without explicitly calling his approach as non-dual, all of his books are heart and soul non-dual.  This book, and his others, I highly recommended for their attention to clarity, brevity, and depth..

WON "HIGHLY RECOMMENDED" from Soul & Spirit's 2019 Spiritual Book Awards for Best Spiritual Author.

“The fact that you are not dead is not sufficient proof that you are alive!”

So begins Tom Stella’s latest exploration into the life, death, and rebirth of the soul. In CPR for the Soul: Reviving a Sense of the Sacred, Stella shares the deep, eternal wisdom that knows the lines separating the sacred and the secular, time and eternity, humanity and divinity, are false. Or, at the very least, blurred. God, by whatever name, is found in the midst of everyday life, work, and relationships. All people, all creation, and all of life is holy ground.

Divided into 13 sections, this collection of over 100 short reflections speaks to the countless people – young and old, male and female, churchgoers and church avoiders – for whom life’s demands and stress have caused them to lose touch with their soul, the “still point,” to use the words of Dag Hammarskjold, “surrounded by silence.”

This book offers a revival for the soul, a reminder that “we are one with something vast” – a “something” that “is not a thing or a person, but a spiritual source and force at the heart of life.”

What's Happening

What's Happening

Yes..

This we often pose

as a question..

Our minds

inquiring minds

want to make sense

of the many

perceptions we are

handling right now..

But the problem is

what's happening is

soon not happening

and the question repeats..

The question repeats

until exhaustion 

suggests no end to

happening's 

dying and renewing..

A better question

might then arrive..

Is there stability

at any time and place..

A stability in which

and before

so much happening

appears..

The answer shouts

or remains hidden:

Yes...

West Wing...

Rupert Spira:  How to Experience Yourself as Awareness. (I Am..)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGoCh_dv1AA&t=195s

Rupert Spira:  God in Relation to the Non Dual Understanding (I Am..)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha_KFQxvGbQ

Rupert Spira:  God's Face in All Experience (rubbing fingers)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNuCMYxeSps

Rupert Spira:  There is no World Outside Consciousness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGxfXxUwU8Y&t=209s&fbclid=IwAR3sfU41Tz9irkFlzNJeJNUej9ZXxekDhf9tbkJxNabpz1Rmxfm97RxWy2s

Rupert Spira:  Consciousness is our True Body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoU_bjtst7c

Rupert Spira:  Is There a Purpose to Suffering? (narrowing, contracting..)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4u_pM3g20o

Rupert Spira on Meditation (text)
http://www.sahajapublications.com/assets/pdf/TheLightofPureKnowingChapter2.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3IYsJXI-kAqverGdwpjYPfUcNTGH-DjALj1f29_auPPhzcMXbVxn8paOo

"All you have feared at any time in your life is no more than a thought that you believed into existence. Things that you imagined to be so are no more than imaginings. If you accept that mind exists, you will try to control it and manage it. This is mind trying to control mind. If you self-enquire as to whether mind exists at all, you will find that it does not. Mind itself is simply a thought. This discovery brings freedom."
~Jac O'Keeffe

Seasick

  

Seasick

in progress

Irreducible

Irreducible

What is it

that we can say is

irreducible..?

This has been 

science's quest over

the centuries:

to locate the illusive

irreducible..

Atoms in ancient times

seemed irreducible 

followed eventually by

electrons..protons..quarks..

You know these names..

Names of matter 

tinier and tinier..

irreducible

And the end 

is not in sight for

searching in matter

for that which is

tinier

tiniest

irreducible..

It appears 

we await a new day.. 

Perhaps soon 

for recognition

that our focus

need be reversed:

inside not outside

is a non-location

infinite and

irreducible...

Waving

Joan Tollefson

Everything is a choiceless movement of an ungraspable, inconceivable and indivisible presence. There is space Here-Now for everything to be exactly as it is, and it is never the same way for more than an instant. Human beings with our complex brains have a habit of overlooking our actual present experiencing in favor of a conceptual story that we have learned—we overlook the territory itself, which is alive, and try to live in an (inaccurate and misleading) map.
By giving open attention to our actual direct experiencing, by looking and listening rather than always try to think our way to clarity, by feeling into this spacious awaring presence that we are, we can discover that we are like moving waves in the Ocean—each of us is a momentary, ever-changing, fluid movement of the whole Ocean. We are not actually separate from the other waves, and we are never anything but the Ocean. We cannot go off in a direction other than the one in which the Ocean is moving, and when we “die,” we subside back into the Ocean that we never actually left.
The Ocean includes big waves and small ones, stormy seas and placid ones—but it is one, whole, undivided happening without borders or seams. Only when we identify exclusively as the wave do we worry that we are “too small” or “too big” or worry about what will happen to “me” when “I” die, as if a waving movement has ever been any solid, persisting “thing” to begin with, or as if it has ever been apart from the Ocean.
The true “I” to which we all refer prior to name and form is the Ocean. And we don’t have to stop being a wave to realize that we are the Ocean. The Ocean loves waving. To paraphrase Rumi, “You are not a wave in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a wave.” So wave on in whatever way you are being expressed, which you cannot help doing. And do not fear returning (at the moment of death) to the place you have never left.

Whatever It takes

Whatever it takes

Sometimes called a
 hidden diamond or pearl..
Meaning a recognition 
seemingly hidden..of
the identity of each of us 
which bears the 
fruit of real happiness..

The recognition happens
in any time or place
but the odds are improved
with a gardener's nurturing
or a teacher's mention of
the joy of the return
..whatever it takes..

Facing now toward
the morning sun...

See:  Luke 13: 1-9

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+13%3A1-9&version=CEV

The Search

The Search

We all know

what it is to search..

For what do we search..?

Apparently for many things

yet these things disguise that

which is the real object

for which we are searching:

which is..simply..to end our

desire to search...!

The "I Am" Portal

The "I Am" Portal

Indeed..!

a portal of experience

as a patch of blue

breaking the clouds..

a clearing to reveal

the infinite Am

in I Am...

Existence

Existence

in progress



Tao of Photography
http://tao-of-digital-photography.blogspot.com/2019/03/existence-itself.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TaoOfPhotography+%28Tao+of+Photography%29

Fox and Hen

Fox and Hen

thoughts these are
of fox and hen..
predator and protector..
these are images of
our inner separation
the suffering we endure
as we identify with
 these old beliefs..

we suffer as we search
for a restoration which
we know is near..
the fox and hen
wait to be relieved
as the agents of
our long delusion..
which is promised
with the recognition
of a new identity
bathed in grace...

See..Luke 13:  31-35

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+13%3A31-35&version=CEV

Commentary
https://www.sermonwriter.com/biblical-commentary/luke-1331-35/

Hologram

What is a hologram?

to begin

our hologram is

 a construct of

 whole in the part..

a creative thought

 striving to understand

the nature of ourselves

 that-which-we-are..

the brain

 is not the source

of our hologram..

but a view of 

 that-which-we-are

filtered through our

 creative thought..

however~~

thought..most creative

cannot know

that-which-we-are

without dissolving in that..

so our dear hologram

as a favored construct

must an illusion be

standing alone..

Clouds of Pairings

Clouds of Pairings

non duality 

the sages say

is highest expression

of Reality..

it is negation

of separation

of multiplicity..

well..?

our intuition of

unity..recognizes 

that words limit

and separate..
clouds..

all words..!

words recall words

of opposition:

heaven/earth

wave/particle..

you know more..

non duality 

the sages say

is highest expression

of Reality..

it is a negation

of separation

of multiplicity..

still..Truth eludes..

finding Silence...!

What is a tree?

What is a tree?

The mind 

as thought

is the naming

after  arrival

of an image

of our tree..

walking back

we realize there 

is no tree..but a

 series of brushstrokes

on the canvas of

our perceiving mind..

quietly and quickly

in an eye's blink

the mind's thought

names a tree

and 'lo.. we speak

of a tree..

Lady Luck

Lady Luck

what seems 

as good luck or bad

dresses a teacher..

our smaller mind

when confounded by

the unexplained 

drills down to locate

what must be there:

a cause and effect..

often 'tho..alas..

sorry..no luck..

then might dawn

the recognition:

what is happening

is all at once

right Now..

what is happening

halts the search in  

 no time and place

and Lady Luck

smiles and
takes a bow...

The dream goes on

The dream goes on

but the dream now

is an enlightened dream..

one of knowing 

the dreamer and dream

as one..

that is the waking

that seems underway

and which promises

the peace and happiness

for which all

are longing...

The dream goes on, but it is as though you are awake inside the dream. Nothing is so serious. Then, the marks of anxiety and worry, they leave your face. The tensions that are created through the mind and its fears and projections, they're also being discharged, leaving. So when others see you, there's a Vibration, there's an Energy present in you that is the most powerful and yet at the same time, the most beautiful, because we remind each other of our True Nature...
Just try and keep your attention in the Beingness; that natural sense. From there you can see that actions, reactions, interractions, they are playing totally spontaneously. You're just Here. Looking at life, looking out from a kind of Vastness and yet, you're not shopping for experience. Your Beingness IS your Experience.
-Mooji

Understanding

Rupert Spirqa...Understanding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQKphCp9Q4Y

Waiting for Elizabeth (Beth) Ann

Waiting for Elizabeth Anne

(Beth Anne)

Times and places

seem so long ago  

scattered and distant..yet

 on grandmother's quilt

names are revealed

of those women whose

 vitality brought forth

an awaited birth..

Imagination is

silenced by 

contemplation of the

innumerable stories

the sorrows and joys

which are veiled

by the quilt's

sharp brevity.. 

They are here today

to attend this gathering

in celebration of 

the blessed life

of a granddaughter and

daughter and mother

named Beth Anne..

(We gather and honor:

Marie, Adele, Maria Francoise

Oliva, Elizabeth, Philomene,

Betty, Nancy, Sarah Elizabeth,

May, Nancy, Mary Ann,

Margaret, Diane, Elizabeth,

Martha, Matilda, Chariety,

Sarah Frances, Emma Jane, Pearl,

Betty, Eleanor, Sarah Elizabeth,

Eleanor, Letitia Anne, Barbara,

Wilhelmine, Ella, Mary,

Elizabeth, Lucy, Deborah, May,

and Lucy Maria...)

History...?

History...?

history (and science)
have an obstacle..
the observer fades
as  happenings
go their separate ways..
the world as objects
stand as mystery
to be solved by
undaunted effort..

as separation rules
the number of paths
of investigation grow
large and larger..
and the observer
fades still more..

that is, until a
discovery of futility
revives awareness
of the observer
who is huddled
in a hidden place..

subject and object

subject and object

we learned long ago
assumed in school
a simple grammar lesson:
subject and object
maps all of life's
comings and goings..

some have rebelled: 
restricts my freedom..!
but consent has been
the ticket for entry
in cultural games..

to some..experience
seems flouted: 
subject and object 
equals dogma..belief..
experience proclaims:
there is only subject..!

followed by retort:
senses record objects
in the world we find..
displayed out there
seen from in here..

so for now
it appears 
we can choose
either world:
experience..or belief...

Your preference...?