Have to do what the moment reveals needs to be done

Nothing shows itself clearly at the moment. Life is full of haze and shadows and things that can be or may be. The road covers itself, the goal hidden from my view.
How do I walk this path? To where do I walk this path? For what purpose, to what end, to what reward? What must I feel, think, desire? Nothing is known.
I come to another conclusion now, learned in a murky clarity of elusive thought: I have to walk in this moment the best I can. That is all. Every step taken with honesty and without pushing towards any other end except that (to act with honesty). This will not take me to my goal but may be in fact the only goal.

It is surprising to think this because we are so used to thinking about the end result of what we do. Always thinking what or where our actions will lead us to. Giving up this expectation is difficult because it takes away perspective and expectation and to some extent even hope for a wonderful end.

Silence at first gently

I welcomed silence at first. Silence softly hollowed the hollows, like the gentle lover at first caress.

But then as I allowed it space, let it into my being it Seeps in settling down, undulating to find the empty spaces and fill them. It is eloquent.
And then...
Deeper and deeper it goes until it reaches the dark pits, the unexplored mines of the mind where it mines despair, hopelessness, emptiness and hollowness. A place where the questions crowd, and then ebb only to be replaced by (ah the word again!!): hollowness. These are deepest parts, full of unease, filled with whispers. Sibilant. Demeaning. Shameful. Distorted. Untrue? Maybe. But brutal all the same: and Unshakable. Ah, the HOLLOWNESS!!

Where is the steady breath, the unbroken heartbeat, the clear mind, the resolve of silence? I thought silence would bring these?

Silence is frightening now. But refuses to depart. It digs its roots in, uses a sharper chisel to cut out its home, sharp against the heart.
Silence is becoming a firm and unshakable habit.
I want escape. How do I renounce it?
Do I renounce it?

Where is my life?

When I stopped working full time last year it was because I wanted to catch up with my reading, write a bit, travel, think from my armchair by the window.
But, hey!! That is exactly what has not been happening for the last many months!

Work has a way of catching up with one, or shall I saywe have a way of catching up with it. I began feelancing, doing some consultancy and before I knew it I was working full time again! And this time from home- which meant I had no office support! Moving from the social into the corporate sector has not been a very comfortable move. I miss working with individuals, really getting down into the depths of issues to help resolve them.
Corporates are...are...faceless, no, soul less (how very patronising, judgemental, sanctimonious of me!)and I find myself losing touch with my own self while being caught up in the rush of work-that-needs-to-be-done-by-today deadlines. Some months ago, I had much to say but found it difficult to post a blog beacuse I struggled with chanellising the tumultuous flood of thought and in finding adequate words to express them. In fact- I remember my earliest blog posts were a prayer that I find the appropriate words and the language!
Now, I find it difficult to find a way to my thoughts because of all the external data I have to deal with.

Sometimes I feel that this writing here will be the only, albeit tiny, way to keep sight of my thoughts and my real self ...

Embracing silence

Ever since my post "may silence be my friend" I keep finding more virtues in silence. Here is a beautiful Haiku that expresses the same thought but much more beautifully:

Moving beyond words
to the essence
embracing silence…

Contentment

To be aware of the silence
To be receptive to the joy in the moment

To be aware of all this even while knowing that tomorrow will be less
And yet it will be more

Yes, this is contentment

May silence be my friend.

The more I listen to what is in me, the greater the silence
Silence is the freedom from the noises of the mind.

I listen to my thoughts with awareness, without judgment
...There is Silence

I listen to the feelings in my heart, not the words
...Silence

I listen to the calm serenity of just being
...Silence

I notice the freedom from grasping the moment
Freedom from trying to commit it to memory
The tranquil resting, the enfolding into the experience
Without the dread of loneliness

Yes, there is silence

Anahata

Anahata is the unstruck sound, the sound before the beat.

It is the having, within the silence, the potential of that sound.
The possibility of that as yet dormant power.
Unfathomable.

I aspire to that potential. I am the possibility of being more than I can envision, for my vision is limited by what I can grasp. And I grasp less than I can understand.

At the moment I have reached a threshold. I make a small tinny sound inside of me as if I were a mere glass bead inside an earthen pot. Whereas what I want is that I resonate with fullness. That I rumble and roar inside of me with a full bodied, rich, luxurious sound of me.

I aspire for that moment in time when I could swell to bursting, tautend to a point where I could simply snap or instead become the sound of a thousand celestial notes.


Here is Kabir, the master, and he puts it so well……..

Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves, and within it is the Creator:
Within this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars.
The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;

Quietness

For some reason Amar's post- a zen saying- brought this poem by Rumi to mind. It is one of my (many) favourite Rumi poems and i take great pleasure in sharing it here.

Quietness

Inside this new love, die.

Your way begins on the other side.

Become the sky,

Take an axe to the prison wall.

Escape.

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.

Do it now.

You’re covered with thick cloud.

Slide out the side.

Die, and be quiet.

Quietness is the surest sign

that you’ve died.

Your old life was a frantic running

from silence.

The speechless full moon

comes out now.

Meditation

Looking inwards I see
Unrecognizable hues, contours, shapes
still forming

Familiar hands slip away
Loosening their grip
As I too loosen mine
I let them go as they float down
into the past
a haze born of self imposed boredom

my mind empties of ambition and
the edges of feelings are softer
rounder
less jagged

Calmness closes over my head
and engulfs me momentarily

Who Seeks?

I have been thinking about an old adage- If you want something really badly the universe conspires to make it happen?
For what seems an eternity, if eternity can be collapsed into a few months or years- I have sought. Ignorance and conditioning made me think I sought happiness. Later peripheral knowledge of my subject convinced me I sought freedom from destructive patterns of behavior. Burgeoning self efficacy pointed me in the direction of self actualization. But...why did, none of that feel right?

The closest I came to comfort was when I decided that I had to find a life purpose, something that wove all my efforts together, something bigger than myself, a mission that would consume me. If not then the fire of this terrible, impatient inner yearning would consume me instead. Can life force be so destructive? Can we create something larger than ourselves only through self annihilation? To stand paralysed on the threshold of impending change or impending disaster for what seems like forever is erosion. Not slow or insidious but a certain, strong, relentless incineration of the self.

But what paralysed me connects to some of the answers I recieved. The questions I had- What was my life purpose and what did I have to do to achieve it? The answer I took back – it will be revealed, in its own time.
Ah the relief of the thought! To be able to replace the compulsion to do, frantic efforts to work at making it happen, can all be replaced by preparation! Preparing my mind and my self to become a better receptacle.

There are some changes I knew I had to make. To be less egoistic, to be humbler. To think with positivism, to feel less dependant, to be less moved to fear and anger, to be moved with rightful anger, feel the miracle of littler things, to be comfortable with silence and emptiness. To know how to distinguish between principal and secondary greatness, to not expect. Did I not know I had to do all of this? When was I hoping to do them?

This then is my plan of action. Greater control and mastery instead of a desperate seeking, inward action instead of outward. Actively seeking self awareness instead of self actualization. And of course asking many, many many, times a day, the eternal question…………who seeks?

seeing

my eyes turned inwards
i think
if i think long enough, hard enough
will i be able to see who and what i really am?

Lotus

It was a belief I shared with some others that all you had to do if you ever felt lost and unfocused, was to close your eyes, capture in your heart that one moment that you think you created supreme happiness for yourself, identify what is was within you that fashioned it, and then work towards realizing that as a goal.
A good thought but naive.......

In our naivety, we failed to grasp one important fact: Man is powerful and his consistent, sustained action and intent can wreak changes in the universe.
Time and time again we focus on that one snapshot like image, turning it into the polestar that keeps us on our path. But suddenly, without our realizing it something strange has happened: because of our 'doing', the hard work we put in and the changes we set into motion, the elements of our life have been transformed. And so one day, when we look up as usual, it may happen that we may not recognize our world- because insidiously, its very fabric has altered.


And sometimes, what may have altered is our own perspective.

If we are fortunate, we can bring our perspective to shape our world so that we find ourselves in the center of the tapestry of our life once again, till the dynamics of our fluid enclosure and context shift ever so subtly, setting up the cycle again. Yet again.

As hard as we try we cannot escape this inevitable spiral of life.

This, I now understand, and more importantly accept, is the way of life.
The never-ending spiral, the birth and death and rebirth of relationships, action and mistakes.

To Avalokiteshvara, who looks down in compassion on all creatures suffering the evils of existence, goes the million fold repeated prayer of the prayer wheels and temple gongs of Tibet. “Om Mani Padme Hun”. The jewel is in the lotus. The jewel of eternity is in the lotus of birth and death.

May pain and pleasure not enclose me, may I enclose them- and with profound repose.

Striving To Be, Striving To Remain

Does life have to have a purpose?
Recently I have begun to question the importance of contemplating the purpose of my life. It seems indulgent. As if, only if the end is good enough, will I apply myself in the present.
My despair of not knowing what my purpose is, my impatience in wanting to know it, is an attempt to find meaning to be able to carry on living. It seems imperative that only if the conclusion of my life, experiences, learning and action is of some significance, will it be worthwhile.
Or do I mean: ‘will it be considered worthwhile’?

Gradually I have come to be surprised by a new understanding. I have begun to understand that life has to be lived in the waiting. Lived in the waiting. Waiting, emptied of all seeking, and opened therefore to all that can be found along the way. Waiting that is willing to accept the unexpected, the unimagined or the un-coveted.
Waiting then, is my new mantra. I endeavor to empty my life of meaningless actions that stem from external values and create empty days that wait for the goal to be revealed. Days go by without any revelation and yet I know I have to wait, witness, remain in readiness for action and stave off all emotions, especially despair hopelessness, and thoughts that may cloud, even contaminate this state. The goal then, for now, is preparation.

Doing this is like climbing a glass mountain with flip flops.
My determined intent is constantly in conflict with trespasser emotions. Expectations and disappointments, yearning, despair, hope, sadness, hurt, anger take me unawares. Resolute, I wage war against them knowing they will distract me from the wait. Yet, they overpower me and the goal becomes happiness, escape from hurt, reassurance or comfort. Goals that lead me back to the external, away from the source that exists within me. I strive to find a way back to that inner wellspring where intuition and a knowing will lead the way. That is the voice I will pay heed to.

This then is what I am doing. Like the stone that finds its way to the bottom of the lake effortlessly, by just being itself, I need to remain myself and trust that I will be guided to my destiny. Myself and remaining. In those two words lies all my action. And in the waiting…..

stepping in stepping out

My first blog. Words like leaves sent into space. May they fall where they will.