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*Brian Wilcox. 'being a SunFlower, is being Love'. Flickr
The sunflower, a sign that cheers the soul.
Being a SunFlower can be as simple as a
word of caring, a gentle touch, a smile, a hug.
Being a SunFlower, is being Love.
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A continuance of dialogues with a sage who did not see himself as a sage, but others did; from Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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Sometimes, I feel a strong insecurity arise in meditation, and I feel like dropping all this spirituality and just living a normal life. I feel like, sometimes, I'm reaching into the darkness and nothing is there, that I'm going nowhere.
I encourage you to explore this thought of a normal life. Let us take a little time for you to go into silence and let the answers arise, simply repeat the questions internally once and see what response arises ~ I invite everyone here to engage in this self-inquiry ... Have I ever seen what would be the normal life? ... Can life be normal or not normal? ... Is this wish for the normal life a fantasy of something that I think must be better than the life I have now? ... In wanting a normal life, am I confirming myself as separate from life? ... Can I be grateful for life, while wishing for another life? ... Hopefully, you will come to see, if not already, to know with full conviction, that you do not have a life. You are life, life is you. Look closely, inquire ... "Where do I end and life begins?"
Regarding insecurity, insecurity is an invitation to this moment, to this moment you return to, but you have never left. Here, is life, nowhere else, not in another worse or better life ~ such does not exists. The feeling is a call home to where you are, rather than to a place you think you would rather be; it is an opportunity to be honest.
Honest about what?
Years ago, I read a writer share of her picking up a German art postcard at a gift shop. She said it was a dreamlike painting. A tightrope walker steps, step-by-step, in the night sky, walking, it seems, toward a full moon. One end of the rope is attached to the roof beam of a house, from which the walker has left, while the other end is held aloft in his hand, attached to nothing.
You're saying I'm like that tightrope walker?
We are. In life, generally, we do not know what is about to happen. On the spiritual path, likewise. If we can be said to be going anywhere, we are always returning to where we are. Where the tightrope walker is is always a step into the emptiness. The path does not appear apart from the step. This feeling of frustration of appearing to go nowhere, and of not knowing where we are and what is happening, is part of the way we are being taught the wisdom of going nowhere. Since you are always here, you never go anywhere. The now, which you cannot escape, is never a where, a when. Even to say "now" is fallible.
So, insecurity is the path, in a sense, and I need to accept that?
Insecurity is not the path, for insecurity as you speak of it is an emotional reaction to reality. The sign of the tightrope walker is simply to walk, not knowing what is happening, so being fully present step-by-step, now to now to now. The path is step-by-step, now-in-now, we are always stepping into the unknown, returning to where we are. Yet, you cannot say, "I will bargain with life, so life will protect me, life will cuddle me like a baby." You feel cared for by the path, only when you choose to be caring, even as you feel loved, when you love. Risking a misleading dualism, I urge you to consider that life is not here to serve you, you are here to serve life. If this is so, if you want to feel cared for, comforted, so care for, comfort, someone else. The Universe is like hug-sharing. When you hug someone, you cannot not be hugged, it is really a single hug.
So, accepting this insecurity is the first step to security?
The path manifests, first, as a play of insecurity and security alternating as a prelude to being neither secure nor insecure. When life is personalized, in any moment, you can say, "I feel secure" or "I feel insecure." When not personalized, first, one senses security and insecurity, but cannot say, "I feel secure" or "I feel insecure." Here, there is no "I" claiming it. Once the "I" claims any state of body, it has the "I," you are caught, what was sticky, you are stuck to. This cannot occur when either is simply seen. The observing is, still, a manifestation of the path, not the path as is. The path itself is beyond either identifying or witnessing. The path is before seer and seen.
And, remember, as long as you run from insecurity, you will run into insecurity, and as long as you run toward security, you will run into insecurity. The only way out is to stop running in either direction. See, effortfulness, always an action of the "I," to depersonalize is an act of the "I" trying to escape. To try to escape, this is to confirm no-escape. This becomes like one opening the door of his or her prison cell and walking out, only to find he or she has walked out of right back into the same cell. The "I" has no way out.
What's this state beyond even the witnessing feelings of security or insecurity?
This is not an emotion, it is not a state. You do not transcend anything. Trying to transcend suffering is like the prisoner opening up the cell to walk right back into the same cell, for in is out, and out is in; in fact, he or she never leaves, though walking out again and again. This is what Buddhist mean by the wheel of suffering, for the wheel is designed to perpetuate itself. If the wheel does not turn, the wheel is not. The wheel and its turning are the same. The self trying to escape is equally trapped with one not trying to escape. If you are using the spiritual path to escape life, that is no different, essentially, than a person who gets intoxicated at the bar nightly to escape life. In the "I" trying to escape there is only the cell, or only the "I," for the I and the cell are a single action. When the "I" is released, the cell is released; when the cell is released, the "I" is released. This is liberation, but not escape. For with no-escape, nirvana is in samsara, non-suffering is in suffering. In compassion, we want to be here, right in this hell happening in the world, and heaven is here too. No escape, no escape, wonderful liberation! Whoopee! Hallelujah! Wonderful! Rejoice!
In the relaxation of the aggression of the "I" to manage life, there is nothing to transcend. Release arises in the I-aggression dissolving into the gentle embrace of Universality, and this is life, this is home. In any direction we go, there is only life, even feeling lost, homeless, we are home, we move about in life, never leaving life.
This is like not having a suitable way to speak of that before happiness-or-sadness, or before love-or-hate. Take the "or" out, which means take the choice out, the options out, and something else is present prior to either. We can come up with words, like equanimity. Yet, this is still a term of emotion, a psychological term, and we have no vocabulary to speak of anything outside the situation-of-or, which is oneness prior to any alteration of the timeless, placeless Nothing. Yet, recall that Nothing is not an absence, a void, Nothing is simply not something. When you see this, it can feel like a "Wow!," even if a "Wow!" of utter, unspeakable silence. "Wow!"
Rather than continue to speak about this, I leave you with this to explore in silent inquiry: "What is present before anything is seen to be present?" That is the question. I urge you to contemplate that question. Again, "What is present before anything is seen to be present?" Then, inquire, "What is present before anything is present?"
*Brian Wilcox. 'a passionate fellowship'. Flickr
(C)Brian K. Wilcox, 2019
The theme of "Lotus of the Heart" is 'Living in Love beyond Beliefs.' This work is presented by Brian K. Wilcox, of Maine, USA. You can order Brian's book An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, through major online booksellers.
*Reference to postcard in Deborah Smith Douglas, in "Staying Awake” (Weavings, July/August 2002).
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