Saying For Today: What is happening on the surface are the details, what is happening in the depths is the joy.
Ask yourself: What gives my life meaning? Whatever answer you give, it will boil down to some notion of belonging. Thus your own experience proves to you that only a sense of belonging makes human life meaningful. We need to remember this insight: Meaning springs from belonging.
*David Steindl-Rast. Deeper than Words.
First ‘I’ must be there. One can say it is the password into this mighty game of existence. Only after ‘I’ comes ‘you’ and ‘other’~world, friends, education, desire, religion, and so on.
*Mooji. Vaster Than Sky, Greater Than Space..
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we already belong no need to try to belong we simply accept we each belong we can, right now, right here, anytime, anywhere belonging is not about belonging to anyone or anything belonging is what you are and this becomes real in sharing with others who already belong too but if you try to belong, you move away from your natural being of belonging as you are, now, here, always
Alone for over 3 hours, paddling the kayak upstream toward Highway 47 Bridge from Highway 441 Bridge, High Springs, FL. Exhausted, aching with fatigue. I had been markedly fatigued for most of the anticipated 4-hour route from launch outside my cabin, the effect of having done the 20-mile cycling in the 95 degree heat and the weight lifting not 24 hours prior. I needed more rest between, the body is letting me know.
Thankfully, with much rain and the Santa Fe overflowing, the current is stronger than usual. I am able to paddle and let the river carry the kayak for a distance, then paddle again. I begin doing this alternatively: paddling, resting.
Also, who made these hard rubber seats? Even with my cycling shorts on, which has padding, my buttocks is hurting like heck. Over and over, I am lifting myself off the seat, to get some respite. The relief is short-lived.
This is lovely out here, the quietness welcome too, but pain a constant companion. I take it a little at the time, working with the moments to stay in-the-moment, reminding myself this is my meditation practice, making everything workable, cheering myself up. I recall a reading the day prior, when a spiritual teacher, speaking of sitting meditation, taught basically, "Just keep at it, keep at it. Stay in the moment, until the next moment." So, that is what is happening here on these waters ~ at least, trying. Yet, I find it a challenge to stay in this-one-moment, as the moment I keep going to is a fictional one for not here. I keep projecting I am farther upstream at Bridge 47, waiting for pick-up.
The trip is about a 4-hour one, but I make it in about 3 hours 15 minutes. Then, when off the waters, relief in this-one-moment, the tension drops, and joy to have taken this water voyage. The body feels blessed to have been stressed to its limit; yet not again, is this to be, not such two intense days in a row. I, now in my late 50s feel younger, sometimes much younger, not today, not now.
Possibly, the most memorable sight of that lovely landscape along and on the Santa Fe is the two persons I met on the way. Lovely, for we had a meeting on the river and meaning happened through our sharing. One 'I' met together through three appearances of one Self. Three-in-One, yes, One-in-Three, on a river in Florida. So profound, for so simple.
They, a couple, were headed to the same bridge, each in a like kayak. The two came up behind me, having been on the water for a much shorter time than I. I was glad to let them pass. They asked where I launched, I told them. We shared conversation. They moved onward ahead and had just gotten out of their kayaks at the bridge, when I paddled up and disembarked also.
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This appears unspectacular, as you often speak of how the Sacred shows up in the ordinary.
Hearing this, yes, someone could say, "So what?" On the surface, "So what?" I agree. Meetings like this can happen anytime, anywhere. I am not speaking only of the surface of the river or the surface as what appeared to happen on the river, in that meeting. If one chooses to live on the surface of a river or life, not I and not 'I'. We each choose unconsciously to live on the surface. When awakened to the depths, we consciously choose to continue on the surface or in the depths. What a gift when consciousness to choose arises. That is a sign we are conscious enough to choose. Many prefer the graveyard to a resurrection, playing on the waves to being drawn in and by the depths deeper and deeper.
Our spiritual practice prepares us for this awakening to the availability of this choice?
Yes, true, anything of life does, whether pleasure or pain, gain or loss, togetherness or aloneness, being born or dying, ... when we allow it to, and can in a sense despite our not allowing it to. Life is working for us, when we are resisting that, even resistance can be transmuted into the gold of acceptance.
Yet, nothing makes this heart sharing, essence-with-essence occur. No amount of psychological preparation, spiritual practice, or effort of any sort equals this communion. While one may cultivate conditions for this to arise, a context, this sharing spirit-with-spirit is causeless, independent of any context. We cannot bargain with Grace. There remains no frame in which to put Life and say, "Here it is!" Love fits nowhere, for Love is already everywhere, even through but prior to loving.
It comes as a gift is what you're saying?
Yes, a gift. All comes to the awakened being as gift. Again, interesting that "grace" in the Christian tradition, arising from the Greek, means "grace, gift, beauty." When you share with someone and feel the beauty, the being-gifted, this is communion heart-with-heart. What is happening on the surface are the details, what is happening in the depths is the joy.
I have a dear friend, when I meet her, I always leave with a sense of gratitude. Not to anyone specific, such as might be true of many of religion being thankful to God, more like a free-floating thankfulness. When with the person, I cannot think about what is happening so much as enjoy it.
Yes, you enjoy it, for you are in-joy. Such a gift cannot be understood, only received and responded to appropriately with gratitude. Still, the gratitude is not produced, for it, like the gift, arises freely into the spaciousness of the heart. The essence, the gift, the gratitude are of one blessing.
Do you think the others sensed this oneness of sharing on the river? I sometimes feel it with another, and I wonder if I'm the only one, or is the other feeling it too? I really don't know even how to ask my friend, for example.
You need not ask. In time, you grow to sense if the heart-reciprocation is occurring. Even if such is true for you, not for the other, you provide the spaciousness for the silent invitation to remain. Never try to create this connection with anyone. It arises or it does not. You can only prepare yourself to share in the spaciousness that would allow this union to manifest.
To some persons, the meeting on the river would have been a chance encounter with some friendly words and goodbye ~ not I, possibly to the other two, I do not know. What an encounter is depends on where you are moving from in the movement of that meeting. And those meeting can be coming from totally different places and, thereby, having very different experiences. And depending on where one meets from, person or heart, a brief sharing, even a smile when passing someone, can be timeless. Meeting person-with-person is located in time, space, not heart-with-heart. In that moment none of these thoughts are priority, only that connection is happening now, no thought of looking at the time is desired at all. You feel as though eternity is present, for it is. How long this happens, in the sense of time, is not of importance. Eternity is always, only now, and needs no elongation for justification or meaning. Each moment is complete, replete; nothing can be added to it, taken from it. So, we can relax with it, trustingly, gladfully.
Possibly, this heart-with-heart leaves quickly, the sense of connection disappearing to nothingness as soon as it arose, as it came from nothingness. All comes from the fullness of nothingness and returns there, endlessly. Not even a moment of sharing of heart-with-heart is lost, all returns to Life.
Before proceeding, I remind you I am not writing of simply an emotionally intimate relationship, however a blessing. I am not speaking of a connection person-to-person at all. I am not belittling the value in such relationships, they are not what I am writing of, however. Once you live from the heart, you will be the spaciousness of invitation for anyone to share that intimacy with you, but it will not be merely an emotional closeness, however close.
I get discouraged in romance, for I seem unable to find someone I can share this indepth heart-with-heart with. Do I just give up on that and choose to remain single?
I cannot say what you need to do. Seek inner guidance. Yet, when you live from the heart-of-all, do not settle for less in someone to share Love with. It will not work, even if you endure it till death do you part, so to speak. This would be like two persons trying to grow a relationship with each living on different planets, for spiritually you would be. You may choose to try to find such a partner; but whatever you do, it will, if arising, come as a gift. You may decide not to try at all, only live in Grace, prayerfully receptive for such a one to share this Loving with you. If you are living from the heart, as the heart, better be by yourself than with someone who cannot share that with you.
So, forget about compatibility?
Forget about compatibility as commonly understood, that is for persons seeking a relationship based on personality and likes and dislikes of the sense-of-self; again, that is all surface. If it worked well, there would not be so many divorces in our society. Your heart may want you to be with someone who would fail the test of compatibility.
Have you experienced connections with persons on the other side?
One should speak of such with caution. Not all things are meant to be told, some things are to be held in secret, close to the heart.
Would it be right to say that most persons are not prepared for this heart-with-heart?
That seems true in our culture, about other cultures I do not know. I sense the more materialistic we become, the less available we are for deep connections, except maybe for those we are by nature close to, like family. So, yes, I think few persons in our culture will come out of hiding, they feel this kind of heart-intimacy as exposing them, making them too vulnerable. Being available for this closeness, it will happen without your deciding whom with. So, regardless of others, keep the heart open, always. Your heart will find other hearts, for you move with a like-frequency: Love seeks Love, God seeks God.
If video does not play from this site, access original site through artist-title in upper right; lyrics follow.
I want to hold the hand inside you I want to take the breath that's true I look to you and I see nothing I look to you to see the truth
You live your life, you go in shadows You'll come apart and you'll go black Some kind of night into your darkness Colors your eyes with what's not there Fade into you Strange you never knew
Fade into you I think it's strange you never knew A stranger's light comes on slowly A stranger's heart without a home You put your hands into your head And then smiles cover your heart Fade into you
Strange you never knew Fade into you I think it's strange you never knew Fade into you Strange you never knew Fade into you I think it's strange you never knew I think it's strange you never knew
*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.
