Realization: gradual or Spontaneous?

[Guest guest]

"You can't give up seeking, because the seeking has got hold of you.

Ramana Maharshi said, "Your head is already in the tiger's mouth." No

escape! So you keep on climbing. So, suppose you have to climb 101

steps, and you don't know that there are 101 steps, so you keep on

climbing. So the climbing is a process in time, you see. But the step

from 100 to 101 is sudden, you see. 100 to 101 is sudden but climbing

100 steps is still a process through which the body-mind organism has

to go."

 

~Ramesh

 

 

 

Cliff Notes

 

 

Having taken an initial step off

the cliff of myself

I knew not what to expect,

nor did it matter more than

falling, floating

wingspread wide and swooning

in the Lightmind of transparent

Being.

 

So much moving to be sung,

this song of Breath to Name-

Heart to beating Heart.

 

Who among us will hear

this song but those who

passed this way before

and on return sing of it?

 

I am not other than

all of This, within

which there's no other.

 

Are you nodding now?

Have you ever been

other than This?

 

I don't know

who I am.

 

Has it always been

not so?

 

Have I always been

alone, drinking

water of saline solitude

within a sea of my own body?

This body that is Our Body,

Our Oceanic Life?

 

Are my tears this water I

recycle, perpetually?

Heart pumping soul through

sockets of light?

Soul drenched in spirit water,

baptized in my own essence?

 

But when I look within,

there is no within!

 

MMMMMMM!!!!!

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

 

Oh do you know this?

Of course you understand!

 

When I look at these words

my tongue stops.

 

Who says what?

 

When the poet looks at this

impossible full moon, she becomes

suddenly quiet.

 

When lovers see this radiance,

they feel the face of the beloved

appear within the heart.

 

When the mystic wanders into this light,

he looks up, cries out

"ShivAllah!"

 

The man next door takes out his

garbage, walking back to his room

without even looking up.

 

Still, the moonlight guides his steps.

 

I gaze up at this Luminous Wonder,

hearing absolutely nothing spoken.

And yet, in this nothing, everything

wanting to be said is said.

 

There isn't any doubt about it.

 

Where was that cliff

I stumbled off?

 

Are you there now,

perhaps?

 

Perhaps peering out into

this Boundlessness,

this space between these

tender mysterious thoughts?

 

Who is willing to give up

what is most closely held –

 

this throbbing pulsing life?

This breath?

This hope?

This word?

 

What is the mysterious

Impulse, anciently encoded

Memory, sweeps us to

this edge of ourself,

teeters us on the brink of

sudden permanent suicide?

 

Dare we stare down the depths,

bottomless voice echoing back to

the empty chamber we've become in

Nada Brahma syllables?

 

In heart-piercing slices of

let-go ecstasies

sniffing around again for

some imagined foothold in

limitless space?

 

Ah, what can be said now, bewilderedly

tongue-torched by luscious

Brightness welling up

arching spine involuntarily

tipping crown and giving head

a way out of itself,

at last?

 

Ah.

Adieu.