BE WHERE YOU ARE
I had a teacher who said, “Forget where you're going. Be where you are.” Those words stayed with me over the years. They seemed so contrary to the mind’s searching nature and to the whole idea of becoming someone and doing something.
Eventually I have opened those words up and explored their meaning enough to see the value of them. It’s the second sentence that holds the key. “Be where you are.” Although it sounds simple, the true invitation of these words takes us into the depth of us. They take us into the realization of presence. Who can say they are truly present in the here and now?
It has taken me years to soften into presence as a continuous abiding. I imagined it would be spectacular, but it’s natural and ordinary. It’s what happens when mind ceases its disturbance, and the subtle energy system is free of all charge. To me it’s holistic, whole and home. It’s alive and vibrant, open yet entirely focused when necessary.
And the, “Where you’re going,” part, well it kind of takes care of itself. Of course there are plans, arrangements, actions that involve the future. It’s not an abdication of attention to the future, it’s a release of the need for it to be a certain way, and release of the mind that says, ‘When I get there, I will be ok.’
We are ok now. When we sink deeper into ourselves, we meet everything that stands in the way of our presence. That I call the great softening. As we soften more and more we fall into our natural state. And that is presence.
Thanks for reading, now some poems.
Don’t spend all your time Trying to escape the human condition Spend your time Seeking to accept it on ever deeper levels The first approach Takes you further away from life The second brings you much closer Until you dissolve into a profound intimacy. ------------------------ We are patterns of light Dancing through the dark void No one here really knows why Anything exists at all. ---------------------- At first you peek through the veil With a certain caution Eventually you just tear it down So thirsty are you For the truth of things. ---------------------- We live in karmic times Clean up your past Live in presence Practice forgiveness Step off the wheel And fall into love’s openness. ------------------------ Through the filter of perception Veiled by conditioning What we see is not reality But some personalized movie That only makes sense to us We take that to be reality And cast it upon the world As the truth. ------------------------- You unplug from the Matrix The subtle energy body And all old stuck energies Start to release It’s painful, scary It’s like being born again That’s it! No more dulled senses No more avoidance of feeling No more unconscious addiction The phoenix has arisen And sleeps no more. ---------------------------- It’s simple Inside everything is love But to know this As a living truth One must go Deep inside Far beyond Mind’s knowing --------------------------- You are not the universe Squeezed into a tiny body You are a shaft of sunlight Beaming out from the one great Sun. ------------------------- Give your attention To the soul’s beauty To the love that longs to shine Give allegiance only To that inner spark That carries the light Into the darkness. ----------------------- Meditation alone won’t do it Inquiry won’t do it Going to endless satsang retreats won’t do it There has to be something deeper Something energetic has to happen An opening that releases what is inside A catharsis, something primal The body energy system must be involved. ------------------------- Stand outside time See it flowing like a river There are rapids and peaceful brooks All resolved into the oceanic eternal ocean. ------------------------ The only antidote To the ills of the world Is to heal yourself Back to inner union And to radiate That harmonious vibration Into the fractured collective field And leave the rest to grace.
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Appreciating your authenticity…