The Final Barrier

“The biggest ego-trip is the spiritual one. How can you think you are special when every leaf, every ant, every blade of grass and grain of dust is already perfectly enlightened? It’s good to remember, enlightenment only happens when you disappear.” 

From Lightsongs, the book.

Beware the cunning ego, the ultimate master of disguise. He wears the cloak of humility and spirituality with perfect aplomb.

“Look at me! I am so humble and good…I am progressing so well on my spiritual path. I experience the Light in my heart and the flowering in my sahasrara chakra. Pity these poor worldly souls who are still trapped in their delusions and their karma.”

So subtle his air of superiority, disguised so cleverly ….and so you fall again into the false comfort of “spiritual “ progress. You think of yourself as the true seeker who has found the path and is so far ahead of and superior to the ordinary joe on the street…..just remember: Mr. Ego will play any role convincingly to avoid dying.

Sorry buddy…you got played again.

The truth is: you have to jump off that cliff !
 You have to be burnt to a crisp and your ashes dissolved totally in the depths of the ocean.

You have to die. Before your body dies.

There is no other way.

" This aloneness is worth more than a thousand lives.   

This freedom is worth more than all the lands on earth. 

To be one with the truth for just a moment  Is worth more than the world and life itself.

In the end, the mountains of imagination were nothing but a house.

And this grand life of mine was nothing but an excuse.

You've been hearing my story so patiently for a liifetime.

Now hear this: it was nothing but a fairy tale."

Rumi

The Prince. A fairy-tale.

Sprung from the loins of Light, he is shadow-less, a singer, first-born of emptiness, waiting for a sign.He is Being, pure and untrammelled, a spark of the divine flame, a prince of conscious bliss.

From nowhere, a pale reflection suddenly appears, casting a haze upon him, creating a smoky backdrop of space-time for shadow and light to play at lovers, spinning worlds into being.

 Maya the inexplicable, great magic mistress, mother of infinite illusion, begins her spinning dance….drawing him like a moth to her flame. Hypnotised by her terrible beauty, the agony of desire fills him and he falls like a stone into the maelstrom of samsara…the fragmentation of unity and truth. His spark now hidden in a cloud of unknowing and delusion, he is lost in an unreal dream.

Thus begins the tale of tales, the birth of myth, the great adventure, the legend of a thousand lifetimes and a thousand worlds. 
Once upon a time: the lost prince, the fallen angel seeking his redemption, the prodigal son, the knight on the eternal quest….and so, the stories begin.

They carry him like a leaf on a storm through innumerable wombs and worlds beyond end in the dance of life and death and life again: and again and again. Tangled in the chains of  cause and effect, our prince is sucked into the nightmare, the tapestry of suffering, the cunning drama of a mind running wild. 
In the midst of this seemingly endless madness, this inevitable and fateful forgetting, can he find a way to remember who he truly is? Will he ever escape the enchantress and her wiles and find his way back home?

Fortunately, there are mysterious signs that appear upon his path, just when they are needed the most, and also guides who help him find his way: a talking animal, a kind spirit, an ancient tree, an old hermit, a bent crone, a sunny smiling child. They set him on the path to find true wisdom. 

At last, after many trials and tribulations, mistakes and wrong turnings, our hero finally finds the Master, who is the healer and magus and sage all rolled into one.
And the Master without points unerringly and emphatically to the Master within, turns the prince’s gaze steadfastly inwards instead of outwards, so that at last he can fathom his own mystery. Thus he finds his own true beginnings in the depths of himself, discovers once more the treasure that has never left him and that has always been the core of his being: his divine Self!

Like a diver emerging from the depths, he awakens to his own truth and emerges into the warm radiance of his true nature.

Is this, then, the grand enlightenment, the nirvana that is eternal and infinite joy?

Or is it all a dream in the mind of an author asleep on a park-bench at some cross-roads in a parallel universe?

Could it, perhaps, be both?

I AM THAT I AM , Song of Brahman

I am.
Stillness and motion, nothing and everything, nowhere and everywhere, I am paradox and beyond paradox, beyond all thought or measure or description.From Brahma to a blade of grass, from a grain of sand to the vast galaxies of space, all is me …and YET I remain unchanged, unmoving , untouched, unseen and unknowable.
Out of my infinite eternal emptiness, I spin a mysterious web of conscious energy that is  all there is: I AM  in the marrow of everything…….yet no one can see me or hear me or touch me.
No senses can experience me, no instruments discover me…I am the infinite beyond all beyonds.
 I am the atom that contains all the universes, the drop that holds all oceans, the subject that contains all objects…how can you know me?
Any intellect that seeks me will go mad or crash into the abyss….for I am impossible to grasp by thought.
When all effort leads through despair and total exhaustion to the point of absolute surrender: there I explode in presence like blossoms of lightning; suddenly, I AM!
Being is all. You can only BE me.
The end of suffering is the end of the movie of “YOU”.
It’s as simple as that."
 ( Picture: Gaia by Alex Grey)
Brahman

Hymn To The Mountain

This clay is weak: come you divine Potter and knead it with your grace, pummel it and shape it and burn it in your oven so that it may be a true vessel for your magnificence. Let it be a fine pitcher to hold the waters of your mystery, to feed the thirsty soul lost in the desert of samsara, to bring Life to the very rock frozen in its mirage of death.

This canvas is blank: come you infinite Artist with the colours of your truth, with the brushes of spirit and silence; paint now your masterpiece! May the exquisite images of your secret art blow away the minds of all who witness your cunning craft, so that they may finally awake from the dream of a separate reality.

This reed is hollow: come you immortal Musician and cut holes in it to shape your flute, scrape it and polish it until it sounds like a perfect echo of you. Blow your magic breath, the touch of your lips a blessing beyond compare, the sweet torment of ecstasy in each liquid note dripping with your silence. Such music awakens the dead, drives lovers insane with joy, reverberates endlessly through the very marrow of existence.

This heart is empty: come you eternal Beloved and fill its infinite vastness with your Light, so naught else remains but you!
 Let me melt in that fire like wax in a flame, o you eater of illusion, you divine mountain , you utter and total fire-linga , Om Arunachala!

Safe Harbor of Silence

“Be Still! The greatest truth is Silence! “ Ramana Maharishi

“The ten thousand things rise and fall and then return to the source. Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.” Tao Te Ching.

Can words speak of the mysteries and the miracles of existence? Can language begin to describe the ineffable perfection that lies beyond the mind? Can allegory and metaphor describe the transcendent and the sublime? 
Can the ear of the heart hear the song of silence?

Pure Being is the nothing that is everything. 
This is the Self, that shines like the sun in the Heart.
 The reflected light of the Self gives the mind its subtle form. On the surface of the calm infinite ocean of the Self, this reflection called mind creates the waves of thought; driven by fear and desire, through the brain and the senses, it projects the illusion of the universe and loses itself in the bardo of human life.

O you fearful ego-ship tossed on the stormy sea of samsara, drop the anchor of Self-inquiry deep into your own depths. With the totality of desperation, turn the mind inward deeper and deeper into silence…..release the strong anchor-chain of surrender to its very end. 
Once you are anchored firmly in the sea-bed that is your own true nature, no wave or storm can destroy you….you are forever merged with your swarupa, your Being which is silence.

When that great silence devours the mind, the universe dissolves into void.
And lo! Ship, ocean, waves and storms all disappear in that indescribable perfection of blissful love and peace.
Let your anchor stay buried in the rock of the Self and your awakening will be unshakable as you sail through life. 

Children of Immortal Bliss

                 

      

O you children of the human race, born bright with divine promise, can you grow through the pain and the joy, the heartache and the triumph, the torment and the laughter of the drama that your life will be?

Ah dear ones! Life is a song, a storm, a wild roller-coaster ride across the canyons of time and space.

You God- sparks who chose the movie of form, you have worn this mask of limitations so that you can get lost in your story; so that you can forget who you really are and feel the thrills and chills and spills of another adventure.

As the years flow by like driftwood down a river, will your bliss open your heart, will your tears wash wisdom into your soul?

Do not let the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” defeat or embitter you – take courage!

Remember: blessings abound, infinite Grace guides and protects you always. As your destiny unfolds, may you once again discover the truth of your Being.

With the greying of time, may wisdom and that return to a deeper innocence re-kindle the Light of your soul.

Dearly beloved, may you find your way home!

  

( Picture: Courtesy ArtWolfe.com)
http://lightsongs.blogspot.in/2009/01/teach-your-children.html

SHINE!

The sun makes no effort: its presence dispels darkness and bestows life and light on all .
Grace is a light that cleanses all stains, dissolves all blocks, unties all knots.
The Guru is the Sun of grace and love infinite.Without motive or intent, desire or discrimination, this radiance shines on all.
Like the glorious sunrise paints the sky with flame, the Lord of my Heart dispels my clouds, my darkness and turns me into Light.
In that new borning, there is no “me” left- only endless peace in the One.
Arunachala Ramanna, sweet Lord of Light ,- shine!
Oh mountain-shiva, eater of egos, - shine!
Thou destroyer of ignorance, dissolver of “I”……shine!