|
When all turmoil, agitation and ugliness disappears, a new climate reveals itself as peace and equilibrium of the soul. Beauty, as a state of pure harmony, brightness and joy without cause envelop our being, creating a new mentality.
*Ilie Cioara. The Wondrous Journey: Into the Depth of Our Being.
When traveling from the far southeast USA, Florida, to the far northeast USA, Maine, six weeks ago, a moment of Beauty arose, powerfully. In fact, the whole journey of three days, and oft with no sense of where I was, was a continuous moment of Beauty.
And for those who have welcomed and recognized them as they are, they know such experiences remain unnamed and live inside us, eternally, in time. These revelations are reverberations of Oneness, here-and-now. One never is moved through such an unveiling without being changed, thereby. And these arise spontaneously, being free of manipulation. Context, however, can provide the stage setting for the arising of a scene with Grace.
* * *
In my over-loaded Ford Ranger, moving along the highway on the second day of the trip up, an embodied sense of Joy arose. This did not have any precise location in the body, being pervasive, and felt inside and outside~Intimacy is too intimate to be located as either within or without. I seemed to be moving along, in time, in the Cloud of Bliss, outside time.
Yet, this was no happiness, in the sense of an emotion arising from a pleasant happening, for deeper, more intimate. I could not point to a cause of the Bliss. The context was simply moving in the moment, taken out of 'my' ordinary frame of references, being with no one, being nowhere. In looking back, the voyage was like an extended religious rite, as religious rituals are intended to remove one from the sense of a separate self located in time and place.
Indeed, most of the trip, I had only a vague sense of location. The second night, after about 14 hours on the road, I stopped at a hotel. I did not even know what state I was in. I asked the dear lady appointing me a room. She said, "Maryland." Well, there I was, surprisingly, in Maryland.
Yet, over those days, I felt an odd contentment in moving without a felt-sense of needing to know location. All the senses were focused but relaxed, like in awareness meditation, in the zone, so to speak. And even as I moved through Washington, DC, at night, bumper to bumper, fatigued and unable to do anything but keep moving in the apparently right direction, for a time I was not sure I was in Washington. I was notified by a sign pointing directions to a bridge I knew was near the White House. Otherwise, I would have left Washington not knowing it was Washington.
* * *
Now, having given context, back to the one moment of subtle Elation referred to above.... I almost picked up the phone to call a friend, to share what was happening. Next, the awareness arose of a desire not to move away from this pervasive perfume of Grace. So, I placed down the phone. I rested. I relished. I drove on. I realized the need not to move away from the moment, not even to share a report of it to a friend. If I needed to share about it, I could do so later; still, it would only be a report, and an inept one, at that.
And this was, to me, a teaching in needing to hold close such moments of Intimacy. One could compare this to having Love make love with you. Now, in the midst of an orgasm from Grace, would you want to jump up, go to the phone, and report to a friend of the ecstasy of such. Hopefully not! Persons, however, do this all the time. They escape the Glory, following a distraction from the Life they long for. Part of discontinuing this escape is to see honestly that one does this. One may find it helpful, also, to inquire in the Silence, "Why do I feel a need to run away when this Bliss arises?"
Remembrance of this moment of deciding to rest in the Beauty happening has arisen to me over the last weeks. This is the first time I have shared about it. That moment lives on, for what is of Grace is always timeless, deathless, and even one moment of Gracefulness changes us more into Grace through our simply allowing Grace to remain near and marinate us in Its quiet, majestic Aloneness.
Continued... |
