Let us begin.
The room is dark and empty,
and filled with silence.
Keep in mind:
this is not the type of silence to which we’re accustomed,
a silence that is the inverse of noise,
the silence that pervades space like a
Propensity For Action lying in ambush.
No.
This is before that type of silence.
This is emptiness.
It is not even a room actually.
It is not even space.
Space, you see, has properties.
This is awareness without properties, so you
have to calibrate your mind to imagine this
by telling it to stay out of this one for a little while.
Just watch, is what I’d tell it.
Dimensionality hasn’t even arrived yet.
Tell it that.
That’s like throwing the bone
way outside of the yard,
over the fence,
(while calling subtle attention to the open gate… !*$&!),
beyond the sea,
past the sunset,
twirling into the horizon,
still going-
in plain view of your constant companion,
your devoted, furry puzzle solver,
who looks at you oddly for a split second,
head cocked to one side in an effort to comprehend your motives,
then dashes through the front gate barking like a maniac
in hot pursuit of nothing whatsoever.
This, by design, could take a while.
While your thinking mind runs to find the bone,
to put it in its mouth, and shake it back
and forth while growling and pumping its cheek muscles,
to teach that bone a lesson,
right up until it gets bored,
you have some time to your Self.
That’s exactly what we need.
Let us begin.
The room is filled with Love.
(We could stop there, if we wanted.
That would be enough for one day.
But in case it’s another three lifetimes
before we stumble into a moment such as this one…)
Love is.
Love doesn’t think, but
She does have something to say.
So She created a world.
That was the most obvious way to say it.
Here’s the problem:
the world was so deeply ordered
we thought the thing about a world
was that it could run on its own.
You know, according to its own mechanisms.
I like the word ‘bootstrap’ for this type of discussion.
That is like saying Love is optional.
Well that is just plain foolishness, I know, but still…
Look here, for instance—
You don’t need Love to make two hydrogen atoms
fuse into helium and give off energy.
You need immense gravitational pressure is all.
Everything points to that conclusion.
And yet…
You and I both sense it:
Love is real.
We sense that
deep acceptance of Love could change the world.
We also know, stars twinkle in the night sky
according to fixed laws.
Thus, we ask ourselves the question:
where does dimensionlessness interface with dimension?
Where does freedom interface with order?
How do miracles sneak into this world?
(Like thieves in the night?)
(Do the laws cease to be for a brief time?)
(Was somebody bribed along the borderlands?)
(Where are the clandestine points of entry?)
(Can we go there and watch?)
It seems like everything works like this:
one thing begets another in a never-ending sequence.
That doesn’t explain how Love did it, though—
created a world from scratch.
That doesn’t explain how Love still does it—
how She sometimes crawls inside the world
to shake the pipes,
cross the wires,
or flash the high beams on and off.
Inquiring minds want to know:
how does this happen?
Where is the point of contact???
With this in mind, let us begin.
The room is dark and empty,
and filled with silence.
Love has Her eyes closed.
Love discovers She has something to say.
She tries to smile, but there isn’t even any space to bend.
Love wants to start laughing but there is nothing to shake.
She opens her eyes, and suddenly, there is Light.
(Space with properties,
Silence that can jiggle,
ALL that, too…)
Then Love looks in the mirror and sees you.
How did you get inside There!?
Quick! The barking is getting louder…
Before the puzzle-solver returns…
Just Say It!
We can answer all the questions at once!
Embracing Forever 
This is generally what I think love is like
http://thesprightlywriter.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/some-meanings-of-authentic-love/
but I think your ideas on love here are more lyrical…
LikeLike
Love can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. I’m learning love isn’t a feeling, or even a choice, but the bond of beingness that links (and is) all things. Love can also be described in particular situations or relationships, but I think it is always in these cases a specific revelation or example of an underlying reality. Like a fractal of the whole field.
Michael
LikeLike
Oh, I’m pretty sure love isn’t a choice…lol. but neither is limerence – i do not recommend becoming limerent…it’s awful. it takes a beautiful thing and makes a nightmare of it. ask me how i know…or second thought…prolly not…
Here’s kind of a radical take on love/friendship
http://www.bluetruth.org/index.php/Craving_for_Community
“These new friendships will not be ordinary; they will be a full consummation of our deepest selves being inevitably drawn to our highest possibility. ”
I had one of those consummate friends…but it wasn’t sustainable. I had more growing to do…
fractals are beautiful…
and speaking of beautiful
and…just something that popped in my head a little while ago.
this Italian version of Peter Gabrials Book of Love is wonderful…
LikeLike
Casey, “limerence” I had to look up. Never heard of it.
What I appreciated about your reply here was your honest self-reflection: “I had more growing to do.” I think so much begins with a simple awareness such as this.
Wishing you peace this night.
Michael
LikeLike
I have anxiety, pretty much every day, so peace at night is always elusive. One thing that’s been brewing in my heart for the past 6 months or so is how am I going to be a part of the solution to this ailing planet, and no longer part of the problem. I spent 12 years in a laboratory, on the cutting edge of biotechnology. Somehow, while it fascinated me to no end, once I got out, I could never bring myself to go back into it. I’ve been toying with the idea of taking classes to brush up my skills, but when it comes down to it, I just don’t want to. I don’t want to go back in the laboratory. I don’t want to be a part of the technological push away from the natural world.
I’m reading Jerry Mander’s In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Indian Nation. You can read a review here:
http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/mander.html
I want to go into conservation. It’s been on my heart/mind for a LONG time. I almost went into it at university…but I talked myself out of it, thinking there was more to keep me interested/excited in the biotech, and quite frankly, I felt it was more secure and could provide more money. I think it’s time now to see what I could do in this area. This idea warms me up as much as the idea of going back into a laboratory leaves me cold.
So…I’m going to be seeing about what I can do about that. I don’t even think I’d need that many classes and get a second bachelor’s degree. I think that might be very do-able. I’m going to find someone to talk to at my old alma mater today…but I wanted to share this with you. You’re part of the reason why I think I want to go this route…so, thank you.
LikeLike
Casey,
I hope you find some peace in your pursuit. When we are anxious by day, it can be debilitating to think about what we “desire to do and be”. None of the choices make sense. There’s this voice that whispers in our heads about making the right decisions, and I’ve come to the conclusion there aren’t really any wrong ones. All roads lead Home kind of thing. When I first started working in the “real world” it was pretty difficult for me, but the biggest part of my difficulty was the judgments I was carrying about what the world around me was, and who was in it.
I was wrong on both counts.
You are not part of the problem. We like to think there is an active problem on this planet, a growing concern. I’m no longer convinced. Many people would probably jump up and down to read that, gaping into their LCD’s, spurred onwards by the piles of evidence they’ve amassed. “Has this guy looked around lately!?” Evidence is like dirt: it’s everywhere and if you want to make something out of it you can just pile it into shapes you like.
Doesn’t mean that’s the only thing going on… I’m now nearly certain: we think too much and listen too little. When we listen, we hear simple things. When we hear simple things, we recognize Truth. When we recognize Truth, we fall in Love with what is. When we fall in Love with what is, we become real. When we become real, we change the world. This is my version of the DirectTV commercial… 🙂
Michael
LikeLike
Michael, I’m not entirely sure how to answer this one. I’ve been pondering since I read it last night.
For someone who’d never been on the receiving end of Truth Abuse, I’m not sure you know how difficult it is for me to discern Truth from poisonous pedagogy.
I read this yesterday…
http://willspirit.com/2014/01/21/growing-out-of-ourselves/
quite honestly, it made me cry. I’m not sure who to believe. I’m not so sure humans are really the top of the evolutionary ladder as we want to believe.
Who’s right about this? Idk.
I wanted to share these posts with you, too
http://thesprightlywriter.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/the-gas-light-effect/
http://thesprightlywriter.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/if-you-had-controlling-parents/
There is nothing more frightening than Truth Abuse and deliberate Reality Distortion. Just where do we learn the ability to discern Truth from Lies?
I have some heavy duty skepticism I work to overcome, from having my family try to brainwash me. So…that’s where I’m coming from.
There’s a lot of shame-based issues I am chipping away at, little by little by little.
I’m skittish when it comes to adopting anyone’s Truth and for me, it has to be kind of a ‘dipping the toes in’ kind of thing until I feel safe to wander farther in, you know?
I am willing to explore these things, though. My husband said that the books should be on it’s way…so, I’ll let you know how it goes.
Casey
LikeLike
Hi Casey,
Last night I watched the movie Captain Phillips, and the part that struck me the most was Tom Hanks’ portrayal of being in shock AFTER the incident was over. He couldn’t simply wave the mental wand and remind himself his period of being kidnapped by the Somalian pirates was over- he was overwhelmed by the entire experience. I think we’re all like that a little bit, though we’re very good at acting as though we’re pleasantly engaged in our daily lives. To lose touch with the Truth within us is utterly debilitating, and the Course in Miracles suggests the ensuing confusion is simply too vast and too full of distortions for us to navigate alone.
I read the link that you sent, and can relate to the reaction of confusion. At least I think I can. During periods of time in which I was formerly more confused and doubt-ridden than I am today, it was almost agony to think about the “right course of action”. Some religions or paths or teachers would instruct us in the need to do this or that esoteric practice, or to carry a particular dogmatic belief. Paying attention to articles like the one you read would lead us to believe that what we need to be doing is correcting all of the flaws of humanity in an effort to save the planet, or to preserve the presence of beauty in the world around us. These are all, for me, distorted views of “what is”. When the question of “what to do” is meant with guilt, confusion, shame, etc., I know I am responding to some form of falsehood.
When someone tells us “we have to do this” or “we can’t do that” in order to be safe (spiritually speaking), (pretty much any way speaking), I take it with a grain of salt. Spirituality is about healing through discovering what is already real and true. It is a journey of perception, a journey of letting go of distortions and misplaced values and judgments and meanings. We can no more change what is already True than we can prevent the sun from shining today. This is true of ourselves as well as the world around us. A huge challenge is thinking we have a large role in creating what is true, of deciding who we are, and this makes deciding “what to do” or “who to be” a decision with some real weight to it. The core of who we are is out of our hands, cannot be changed by anything occurring in the world around us, and is far greater and more beautiful than we have dared to imagine…
For me this little mantra from A Course in Miracles worked wonders: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Therein lies the Peace of God.”
Let me just say I have no request to make of you. If you like what you read here, and it is helpful, that is wonderful. If you do not, that is wonderful, too. Even if there is something in what I write that you like, it is but a reflection of what is within you…
Michael
LikeLike
Thank you for describing the space. I know this place well 🙂
LikeLike
My pleasure. 🙂 It is good to be home, and to share the experience with family.
Michael
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
Standing on the borderland, pocketful of cash, waiting with my trench coat – going to catch a glimpse tonight!
after she couldn’t even grin, what did she do with all that space? I love the cabalistic creation story of which your musings remind me very much! I’m sure your familiar:
“Before the Beginning, there was, is, and always will be EIN SOF, the Divine field of eternal formlessness. (1)
Within the EIN SOF, a yearning arose, a yearning for ‘Face to gaze upon Face;’ EIN SOF wished to behold itself, so it withdrew itself (Zimzum) from one place. A void appeared “…in which the mirror of existence could be manifested.” (2) (http://www.markallankaplan.com/kabbalahblog/beforethebeginning.htm)
Such an after dinner treat to visit Michael’s musings! Dipping in that fountain of forever, you, night after night!
LikeLike
I had never heard of EIN SOF before, and know precious little about Kabbalah. What I read was beautiful and you’re right to point out how well it dovetails with what I had written. Or probably the other way around. The tail wagging the dove and all that. 🙂
This Presence without form, I love the power, the paradox, the delight in reflecting upon it’s empty Face.
Michael
LikeLike