and this too. . .and this too. . .and this too. . .

[Guest guest]

EVERYTHING SERVES OUR AWAKENING

 

We are, as always, positioned to be Awakened by all things. The degree

to which we recognize this is the degree to which we recognize that

everything must be thus viewed and used. Everything, everyone,

everywhere, everywhen. Otherwise, our relationship to -- and

appreciation of -- Life remains partial, superficial, anemic,

insufficiently intimate. . .

 

To be Awakened by all things is to be intimate with all things,

including our resistance. . .

 

The key is in our hands but out of our grasp.

 

Our habits infiltrate, occupy, and surround us like monstrous children,

overfed appetites and spoilt automaticities squatting upon the throne of

self. But they're just kids. Your kids, my kids, our kids. We let

them keep us busy keeping up appearances. . .

 

Everything is all we've got. . .

 

It's all about attention. Attention usually is allowed to fasten to

apparent objects, inner and outer. Something we see, hear, want, think

about. Things to attend to, to get fasten-ated with. This may be

deliberate, but much of the time it isn't. Observe how easily

attention gets hooked to plans, judgments, fantasies, inner gossip, and

other mental formations even when we desire otherwise. Attention as such

-- inattentive attention -- makes its objects seem more real than they

actually are. But attention can also be withdrawn, to varying degrees,

from its objects. It can even be completely withdrawn, its sole focus

being the very awareness of which it is but the focussing function. . .

 

This is not about imposing a discipline on ourselves, but rather about

yielding to a discipline that emerges from Being. Along the way we have

to traverse the warring territories occupied by the various

" I's " that literally make us up. The ultimate dream journey.

All that we meet, however alien, is us. Habits galore, addictions,

longings, people and qualities and behavior that catalyze every kind of

emotion and reaction in us. So much hurt, grief, anger, shame, numbness,

and also so much joy and love, arising in the very same zones. . .

 

Let the painful assist you. Get intimate with what hurts and bugs you.

Date your loneliness, cuddle your grief, dance with your anger, cradle

your shame. Stop making such a virtue out of comfort. Stop expecting

spiritual practice to make you feel better. . . No flagellation is

needed. There's no overseer screaming at the sperm to swim upstream.

They don't know where they're going, but they're going there

anyway, running all the red lights in an eggistential ecstasy. . .

 

Everything can serve your Awakening, including the doubt or distractions

with which you may now be flirting. . .

 

Being -- the language of which is Truth -- has no position. So long as

we insist on maintaining a position, including that of having no

position or of being " nobody " , we will not significantly

recognize Being. . .

 

If we look down upon the crippled or terminally solid in our flight, we

will become unwinged, so that we might become more intimate with

others' crutches and the dark side of our ascent. . .

 

Allow perception to become functionally secondary to Being. . .

 

The dragons guarding the Treasure ask not to slaughtered, but to

recognized. Through the gates we must go, leaving name and fame behind,

passing through dark labyrinths, unravelled by the Minotaur's

bleeding howl of recognition. . .

 

Do not pretend that you don't recognize that which would wean you

from your delusions, so that you might cease suckling the breasts of the

familiar. Do not pretend that you do not know the Stranger at the Gate,

your lover's face in one hand, yours in the other, erased, ready

again. And do not pretend that you are not pretending. . .

 

Homeward bound are they who, already brokenhearted, do not go to pieces,

for in their woundedness, their lucid vulnerability, the Real obviously

pulses. Homeward bound are they who, wronged or hurt, choose not to

invest in righteousness or revenge, for in their openness, their

willingness to fully forgive, they obviously resonate with the Real.

Homeward bound are they who, ripened beyond conceit, are not trying to

be anywhere other than where they are, for they not only are standing

their true ground, but are it. . .

 

We don't even need to know what to do. It's more than enough to

know what not to do, just so long as we don't make it into a

program. The unmappable does not need cartography. Don't take this

essay as instruction, regardless of my instructions. May my words, now

staggering on fast fading legs, be of benefit to you. May everything

serve your awakening.

 

Everything.

 

Robert Augustus Masters

 

Aum Amriteswaryai Namha

 

and this too. . .and this too. . .and this too. . .

 

marci