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Feeling EnquiryIn my experience, there were two aspects to Inner Enquiry, the search for the Direct Experience of the Soul. Initially, intellect revealed to me through empirical investigation, knowledge of what I was not. Then, at the fateful juncture where the mind reached the end of its capabilities, I fell “into the Heart”, into Feeling Enquiry, into the Experience of what I Am. For when I found that I could not find myself locateable, within, as an object, I realized that I could, however, Feel myself. It was that Feeling that I then focused on with all of my Attention and Intensity. Without that falling into Feeling, we are left simply knowing what we are not - not an object-perceiver-experiencer-person, as we'd come to take our self to be. But falling into Feeling Enquiry at that juncture where intellect, knowledge, and understanding fail, we come, in time, to the vanishing of time, and the Experience (not the conceptualization) of Existence as What we Are – Formless Pure Awareness, in which all duality has vanished; all duality…including even the most subtle sense of our self as the experiencer.
What if, knowing little of the walled villages,
And what if the nature of that Awareness, Hinduism calls it nirvikalpa samadhi; in which the Unalloyed Ecstasy of Pure Being Shines unobscured, before the arising of duality. Others call it Union. Others, the Embrace of The Beloved. Others, the Self. But it is not necessary to pour your Experience into the “interpretation” or description of another, however revered or worshiped that description may be by millions of others. What matters is coming to the Experience yourself. And I have learned, after many decades, that it is not necessary to Vanish in Union, in Absolute Dissolution as Pure Awareness, to become Illumined with the Bliss inherent in that Ultimate Dissolution, here, in the Dream of manifest existence in space, time, and creation. In my own experience, Dissolution and Bliss were subsequent to Union, and for years I assumed, incorrectly, that one must have experienced Union for these aspects of ongoing experience to be present. For I recognized Illumination – both the Intoxicating Dissolution of dualistic experience and the Ineffable Sublimity that is inherent in that Dissolution – as being from the Experience of Pure Awareness; Water from that Ocean, Heat from that Fire. But I have since seen Friends come to Illumination without having experienced Union. We live and we learn. And the learning never ends. Even as you enter the frontiers of Heaven through the inward turning of Attention, the Perfume, the Fragrance of The Beloved will greet you, surround you, embrace you. And you will begin – slowly perhaps, but ever more so – to experience the Dissolution of the felt sense of identity as an embodied object-perceiver-experiencer-person, and the advent of the Ineffable Sublimity of Bliss, which – not to be mistaken for a caused, conditional pleasure – only arises inherently in the Dissolution of the Experiencer. The moment you fall into The Heart, you have entered the Tavern of The Beloved, and the Beautiful One will pour the Wine you long for, and offer the Rose of Love, Causeless and Unconditional.
The mind will lead you to Heaven's Gate. But there, in Humility, will stop and say…
“I have given you all I can,
“I have shown you what you are not,
“Knowing, now, what you are not,
“What is this formless Knower,
“You can Feel the very Aliveness of Being, This is the juncture where Feeling Enquiry begins. We cannot find where we are; cannot describe what we are; and yet, we Feel the Aliveness that we Are. Feeling Enquiry is, at this juncture, all we are left with. We find ourself at the Gate of Pure Awareness, of Heaven. The mind turns, and continues its dialog:
“I cannot enter here,
“Where Knower and known vanish,
“Nor can ‘you’ enter,
“For I will keep ‘you’ alive,
“To enter Here, you must fall,
“And Experience, what You Are,
“Only when you enter, and return, Illumined,
“And together, you and I, Mind and Heart,
“Vanishing as two…
“Union…
“Where Lover and Beloved Vanish,
“Now… at this juncture…
“Abandon investigation and Rest, Alertly,
“Until “you” Vanish,
“Don't float shallowly Here,
“Sinking… falling… into the Feeling,
“Until the last ever-so-subtle vestiges, “Vanish!” “Poof!” |