f In the Garden of The Beloved


Feeling Enquiry

In 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,
Of religion, belief, faith, and philosophy,
You experienced, one day, what seemed,
When considered after the fact,
A loss of consciousness, an Absolute Vanishing
Of Everything whatsoever from Awareness,
Including yourself as the one aware, and yet…
Awareness continued.

And what if the nature of that Awareness,
Pure and unsullied by space, time, and objects,
In which even you, the experiencer, had vanished,
Was so Ineffably Sublime that words did not exist,
To express its Ecstasy, its Rapture, its Perfection,
The Fulfillment of your Heart's Desire,
An Experience worthy of the phrase…
The Kingdom of Heaven, within.

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,
And have brought you as far as I am able.
At this juncture, I am become blind,
At this juncture, I am become mute.”

“I have shown you what you are not,
And revealed the falsity,
Empirically… rationally… irrefutably,
Of what you had mistaken yourself to be.”

“Knowing, now, what you are not,
I have left you Wondering,
Here, at the Gate of Heaven,
‘What is this formless Knower that I Am?’”

“What is this formless Knower,
That you cannot locate as an object, within,
That, being formless, you cannot ‘describe‘,
But, although formless and unlocateable…”

“You can Feel the very Aliveness of Being,
Within which space and time appear,
Within which the world of objects appears,
Within which… the felt sense ‘I Am’ arises.”

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,
Into the Inner Sanctum…”

“Where Knower and known vanish,
In the Experience of Pure Awareness.”

“Nor can ‘you’ enter,
As long as you cling to me.”

“For I will keep ‘you’ alive,
Thinking endlessly ‘about‘.”

“To enter Here, you must fall,
Heartlong into Feeling…”

“And Experience, what You Are,
Before ‘you‘ and Creation ever were.”

“Only when you enter, and return, Illumined,
Will I be able to join You There.”

“And together, you and I, Mind and Heart,
Will dance in Timeless Eternity,”

“Vanishing as two…
Into the Unalloyed Ecstasy of Pure Being.”

“Union…
The Embrace of The Beloved…”

“Where Lover and Beloved Vanish,
Leaving Love Beyond All Duality.”

“Now… at this juncture…
Abandon all ‘thinking about’.”

“Abandon investigation and Rest, Alertly,
In the Unlocatable Aliveness you've come to…”

“Until “you” Vanish,
Leaving the Unlocatable Aliveness that You Are.”

“Don't float shallowly Here,
Fall ever more Deeply into Feeling…”

“Sinking… falling… into the Feeling,
Of Pure Awareness…”

“Until the last ever-so-subtle vestiges,
Of yourself as the enquirer, the experiencer…”

“Vanish!”

“Poof!”