The moment-to-moment Experience of existing,
Imbued with the Ecstasy of Pure Awareness,
Timeless, spaceless, objectless… selfless,
Diminished in its arising in Form,
But unmistakably “of” its Source,
Water from that Ocean, Light from that Sun.
To the Hindus…
The Ananda of Satchitananda.
To the Christians…
The Presence of the Holy Spirit.
To the Sufis…
The Perfume of The Beloved.
A river of Formless Pure Being,
Flowing effortlessly, into form,
Into the Wellspring of the Heart,
Overflowing… flooding even the physical form,
With Fullness, Completion, and Bliss.
Not simply peace, happiness, and joy,
On the level of psychology and emotion,
Not simply a profound understanding,
An apperception born of knowledge,
But the Orgasmic Ecstasy of Union.
Not constrained to eyes shut “meditation”,
But with eyes open,
Here…
In this Dream of manifest existence,
Formlessness, Shining into and as Form.
The Beloved, ever within us,
Her Heart beating in ours, as ours.
The Embrace of Shiva and Shakti,
The Ecstasy of their Union.
For others… the touch of God.
Untouched, unmoved, impenetrable,
By the ever-changing circumstances,
Of conditionality,
Even as storms rage,
In the realms of psychology and emotion.
Ever-present, as Unimaginable Grace,
Even in moments,
Of deepest Sorrow,
Deepest Despair,
Deepest Fear.
This Ineffably Sublime Presence,
Shining as the true Sat Guru,
The True Murshid, the True Teacher,
In the Secret Garden of The Heart.
The Comforter,
The Teacher,
The Beloved.
The Cessation of the felt sense of “I”,
The vanishing, across the whole of Being,
Of the contraction of “me”.
The Ancient Memory of “myself”, vanished,
Even as memories remain,
Of a life lived only by… Life.
Where that Ancient Feeling of “I” was felt,
Now…
Only Serene Emptiness.
No one, no thing,
Where I had been.
Emptiness… Fullness.
Concern for Stature, vanquished,
With the vanishing of the one
Who would be made great, or brought low.
Concern for enlightenment, vanquished,
With the vanishing of the one
Who would become so.
The cessation of identity with anything,
Even with “That”,
Even with… “Consciousness”.
And with that vanishing…
The end of all grasping, all seeking,
Resting, at last, as… Unlocatable Aliveness.
All movement to or from, ceased,
In the Deepest Subjective Experience,
Untouched, Unmoving, Impenetrable.
Enlightenment
I don't care for the word “enlightenment”.
So exalted, so elevated,
So… final.
A word encrusted with aeons of debris,
Mired in cultural mythologies,
Reduced by pundits to exhausted concept.
And in these times, as in all ages,
A word defiled,
By those who wrap themselves in its glory.
Awakening,
Realization,
Enlightenment.
I cringe.
How would I use this word,
This dirtied finger,
Pointing at the moon?
I would change it from noun to verb,
To…
“Enlightening”.
E n d l e s s E n l i g h t e n i n g.
It would include Illumination's Beatitude*,
And the Inexpressible Freedom of Liberation,
But more… so much more…
What more… I cannot say.
For this Experience of Being,
Is ever and always, A Great Mystery.
But of a certainty,
No finality, no summit attained,
No “perfection” achieved.
I would call it a Way of Being,
In Honesty, Humility, Compassion,
Simplicity.
