Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
~Walt Whitman
The whole world falls at our feet every day when just the crumbs are enough to feed us for a lifetime. Few people embrace the whole of it. Yet, we do our best. Dining at the finest tables available but always guided by a thought, most having sprouted in some long ago story. So truly we are not free to sup from every table—whether lean or overflowing. Our fears and doubts do the choosing for us.
If we read about the lives of the visionaries, the mystics, the ‘seers’, who gave up everything to simply Be a resounding expression of what so naturally flows forth from the cosmic vessel, we see that they gave up nothing and ‘found’ everything—found the juice that is the cosmic current lighting up the whole show.
I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.
~Henry Miller from Tropic of Cancer
And in one way or another, even those unknown, have contributed to a slow awakening of human being, the cosmic eye burns away the dross that has burdened us and though riddled with infirmity this we shake off. As the light of divinity gains in strength so we, even those most habituated reach for unlimited expression like a baby reaching for the glitter, the movement of the mobile hanging above the crib and we love our selves just as much as we love the baby. Take away the fear, the judgment, the self doubt and we are that, what we experience radiating from every newborn infant.
We glow with the radiance of a thousand suns, a million street lights, the flame of innumerable candles lit over centuries of persistent allegiance to beliefs generated from one initial thought—separation. And if we wind our way back through the many lifetimes, the many struggles, victories, sufferings and joyous, exalted celebrations of life here, there isn’t a moment that we would exchange as all of it has brought us to where we are in this moment. Here we are, as always, balanced on the edge of realization that it is not the becoming that we so desire but the freedom from anything that says I am not already that which I seek.
The experience of fading in and out of reality is not uncommon. We are familiar with this—staring out across a vast expanse of lake, sea or hypnotized by the turbulence of a raging river suddenly we are yanked back into our thoughts that had been temporarily halted and begin to define once again that which we are observing. But step into the observation without thought and here it is, the everything and the nothing that is present always ‘in us’, ‘around us’, ‘through us’—there is not anything that is not “that”.
If we never had another thought in our life (which is probably impossible) it wouldn’t matter, life would continue and we with it. It is not the thought however that is the problem it is that we believe these thoughts to be true wherein lies the dilemma. Adyashanti, a spiritual teacher who has been available especially on the west coast for almost twenty years, is from time to time heard saying in his satsangs, ‘that there is not a true thought’. All thoughts have their origin somewhere in the past. The moment is constantly flooded by strings of words to which we attach our attention. The experience of this moment is therefore altered. Our attention is not in the moment. Our awareness is not in this moment. So, whatever might be happening in this moment, the unimpeded flow of the cosmic current goes on without us and the ‘resistance’ we have of this moment is a moment spent in denial of truth. The more ‘missed’ moments that string together, the bigger the web or deception and the more tightly bound we are by its parameters.
What we want is to practice being the Fool who, in the tarot, is found standing on the edge of a precipice. He has few belongings so it is clear that he has divested himself of unnecessary baggage or whatever does not serve him and his ability to step freely into what, from the perspective of duality, is the unknown. He is high above ‘worldly concerns’, level with the snow covered mountain peaks. His gaze is upward and in his left hand he holds a white flower symbolizing purity. The Fool himself has the innocence of a newborn child. There is little doubt that he will take that step forward or into Reality.
The other two cards for September are: the 10 of swords that very scary looking card that alerts everyone. 10’s are endings and indicate completion. In this case it is the end of being a victim; to being influenced by, or immobilized by that which occurs externally to ‘us’. In the background is a yellow sky on the horizon, an indication that there is new light arising from what was experienced as dismal times. And we are rising out of the kali yuga into the dwapara yuga—greater ease, grace and light.
The 4 of Swords = inner reflection or as Ramana Maharshi would encourage, self inquiry beginning with the question, Who am I? With this practice we eventually return to the same answer whereby the need for questioning ceases to have relevance. 4’s represent a firm foundation or platform from which to create anew. We do not however linger too long here lest it become too comfortable and our foundation becomes a permanent fixture and us an immovable part of that.
