A Meditation

[Guest guest]

Meditation on the Self with Nisargadatta in Mind

 

In the meditation on the self I look to find what I am,

For am I not sitting here?

I am this consciousness of being here. This is the beingness.

This is all I know.

 

A universal lifeforce is in me,

Hot and breathing,

And I have knowledge that I am

For a part of each day.

 

I look to find what is mine, and I cannot find it.

There was a sense of being “someone” once,

But that was not what I am.

That silly self was exposed as a fraud,

And it dawns to me that I am universal.

I am not a person, I am not a collection of concepts and ideas.

All that is in abeyance now, the mind is quiet,

And I come upon something universal

While tracing my origins.

It is a definite and spacey feeling,

And has a kind of gladness.

 

I had fallen into personhood during my childhood

As I tried to develop some sort of person that I could be.

I imagined I was “someone,” and even had a name,

And I forgot that I am the original and universal

Sense of presence.

I had to manage this imaginary character for quite some time,

And all his plans “to become something,” something else I guess,

All that becoming never happened,

But the masquerade of being an actual entity continued on

For some time.

 

In that way concepts and ideas began to obscure

The sense of beingness, and I imagined

A truly fabulous entity called “me.”

How thoughtless of me to have forgotten what I am.

Am I, the universal consciousness, getting senile?

Luckily, my actual beingness is always at hand

For remembrance and further study.

After a derailment the original beingness

Is immediately available again for further sensing.

 

Nor am I this matter (body) or this time (mind).

If I actually am what is, and I must be,

Then these thoughts are not mine either.

Perhaps it is the universe that is thinking.

 

When I am none of these things there only the vast ocean of

The Self which I am.

 

Going to seek a river, I came upon the sea.

 

These dreams do not last.

Night dreams or day dreams, they vanish into time.

That which I thought that I was,

That comic book hero I was and fell into,

That was not me. That comes to an end.

 

There is a Great Quiet there.

One feel automatically hushed

At the threshhold of void.

 

Unthinkable is the absence of thought.

Invisible is the darkness.

Unknowable is the state of not-knowing.

Insensible is the state of not-being.

 

But I know that I am, and I seek that

By which I know that I am.

For after all, how could I even be at all,

Let alone know that I am --

And what is it?

 

So in this sitting here is felt

A deeper “something” sitting here.

Isn’t this actual being here

Just the total manifestation?

Just when did “I” come into the picture?

 

Hollowed empty like a husk

I am just what is, supremely.

I am the creation.

I am the lifeforce bursting with its consciousness.

I love to be.

I am mad about being.

I eat it up.

 

The sages have said “Let the beingness

Merge with the non-beingness,”

But I do not understand them yet,

Or perhaps don’t want to:

So strong has come the sense of being

I do not want it to ever end.

I even fear for the life of it.

 

Intoxicated with my beingness

As the total manifestion, I feel fine,

And all shines with a fine inner light.

I know that all people are my Self and that

They are none other than what I am.

 

Talking to myself in them

I am often in love,

And tears fall

As I see the beauty of myself.

I do not want this beingness to end.

 

And if my thoughts stop

There will be no poem,

And sometimes in the Great Quiet

I want the music that the stars sing.

 

The sage whispers to me that I am

Really beyond all this, that I am the

Unmanifest Absolute, without form

And prior to time.

And I am sure that is the truth.

 

But perhaps it is not yet time.

The love of beingness and consciousness

Has taken hold of me.

I am and I love to be.

I tell myself I must sit with that awhile

And let that eternity ring in the background.

I am the great enjoyer of myself for now.

 

I know to the sage all this beingness is useless,

And the beingness is useless to itself.

He has entered the eternity, and is there to stay.

I guess his dreams are done and that

Silence reigns supreme in him.

He has forsaken all temporary things

As being illusions. He abides

As the total manifestation.

 

Stillness is needed to feel that which is subtle.

But stillness comes naturally when one is

Urgently seeking the primordial identity.

Mind and body gladly bow at the doorway of heaven.

 

Knowing that I am that universal consciousness,

I end my meditation, and prepare some tea.

But the meditation continues on, for I can still find no

Actual person who is here present.

There is no one to take delivery of the message “I Am.”

And in the background and throughout the manifestation

Rings the Unmanifest Absolute,

Unmoving and unchanging it its eternity.

[Guest guest]

This is beautiful Willy!

 

willy <wmorgan@n...>

Thu Mar 21, 2002 5:44 pm

A Meditation

 

Meditation on the Self with Nisargadatta in Mind

 

In the meditation on the self I look to find what I am,

For am I not sitting here?

I am this consciousness of being here. This is the beingness.

This is all I know.

 

A universal lifeforce is in me,

Hot and breathing,

And I have knowledge that I am

For a part of each day.

 

I look to find what is mine, and I cannot find it.

There was a sense of being " someone " once,

But that was not what I am.

That silly self was exposed as a fraud,

And it dawns to me that I am universal.

I am not a person, I am not a collection of concepts and ideas.

All that is in abeyance now, the mind is quiet,

And I come upon something universal

While tracing my origins.

It is a definite and spacey feeling,

And has a kind of gladness.

 

I had fallen into personhood during my childhood

As I tried to develop some sort of person that I could be.

I imagined I was " someone, " and even had a name,

And I forgot that I am the original and universal

Sense of presence.

I had to manage this imaginary character for quite some time,

And all his plans " to become something, " something else I guess,

All that becoming never happened,

But the masquerade of being an actual entity continued on

For some time.

 

In that way concepts and ideas began to obscure

The sense of beingness, and I imagined

A truly fabulous entity called " me. "

How thoughtless of me to have forgotten what I am.

Am I, the universal consciousness, getting senile?

Luckily, my actual beingness is always at hand

For remembrance and further study.

After a derailment the original beingness

Is immediately available again for further sensing.

 

Nor am I this matter (body) or this time (mind).

If I actually am what is, and I must be,

Then these thoughts are not mine either.

Perhaps it is the universe that is thinking.

 

When I am none of these things there only the vast ocean of

The Self which I am.

 

Going to seek a river, I came upon the sea.

 

These dreams do not last.

Night dreams or day dreams, they vanish into time.

That which I thought that I was,

That comic book hero I was and fell into,

That was not me. That comes to an end.

 

There is a Great Quiet there.

One feel automatically hushed

At the threshhold of void.

 

Unthinkable is the absence of thought.

Invisible is the darkness.

Unknowable is the state of not-knowing.

Insensible is the state of not-being.

 

But I know that I am, and I seek that

By which I know that I am.

For after all, how could I even be at all,

Let alone know that I am --

And what is it?

 

So in this sitting here is felt

A deeper " something " sitting here.

Isn't this actual being here

Just the total manifestation?

Just when did " I " come into the picture?

 

Hollowed empty like a husk

I am just what is, supremely.

I am the creation.

I am the lifeforce bursting with its consciousness.

I love to be.

I am mad about being.

I eat it up.

 

The sages have said " Let the beingness

Merge with the non-beingness, "

But I do not understand them yet,

Or perhaps don't want to:

So strong has come the sense of being

I do not want it to ever end.

I even fear for the life of it.

 

Intoxicated with my beingness

As the total manifestion, I feel fine,

And all shines with a fine inner light.

I know that all people are my Self and that

They are none other than what I am.

 

Talking to myself in them

I am often in love,

And tears fall

As I see the beauty of myself.

I do not want this beingness to end.

 

And if my thoughts stop

There will be no poem,

And sometimes in the Great Quiet

I want the music that the stars sing.

 

The sage whispers to me that I am

Really beyond all this, that I am the

Unmanifest Absolute, without form

And prior to time.

And I am sure that is the truth.

 

But perhaps it is not yet time.

The love of beingness and consciousness

Has taken hold of me.

I am and I love to be.

I tell myself I must sit with that awhile

And let that eternity ring in the background.

I am the great enjoyer of myself for now.

 

I know to the sage all this beingness is useless,

And the beingness is useless to itself.

He has entered the eternity, and is there to stay.

I guess his dreams are done and that

Silence reigns supreme in him.

He has forsaken all temporary things

As being illusions. He abides

As the total manifestation.

 

Stillness is needed to feel that which is subtle.

But stillness comes naturally when one is

Urgently seeking the primordial identity.

Mind and body gladly bow at the doorway of heaven.

 

Knowing that I am that universal consciousness,

I end my meditation, and prepare some tea.

But the meditation continues on, for I can still find no

Actual person who is here present.

There is no one to take delivery of the message " I Am. "

And in the background and throughout the manifestation

Rings the Unmanifest Absolute,

Unmoving and unchanging it its eternity.