Saturday, December 22, 2007

Body Intelligence!

Rumi, the Sufi poet, lived over 700 years ago. Rumi knew about connection and awareness. He saw himself as more that a Turkish villager who worked hard, and experienced the pain of living in the Middle Ages. He wrote about the life he experienced, and he used his connection to pull himself and those who read his work out of their daily feeling of separation. He connected to an expanded version of the self. He described the thoughts of the people in a simple way, and explained that in that simplicity there was a greater good. He taught them to feel their inner senses.

His work Body Intelligence,is all about that message:



Body Intelligence

Your intelligence is always with you,
overseeing your body, even though
you may not be aware of its work.

if you start doing something against
your health, your intelligence
will eventually scold you.

If it hadn't been so lovingly close by,
and so constantly monitoring,
how could it rebuke?

You and your intelligence
are like the beauty and the precision
of a astrolabe.

Together, you calculate how near
existence is to the sun!

Your intelligence is marvelously intimate.
It's not in front of you or behind,
or to the left or the right.

Now try, my friend, to describe how near
is the creator of your intellect!

Intellectual searching will not find
the way to that king!

The movement of your finger
is not separate from your finger.


You go to sleep or you die,
and there's no intelligent motion.
Then you wake and your fingers
fill with meanings.

Now consider the jewel-lights in your eyes.
How do they work?
This visible universe has many
weathers and variations.

But uncle, O uncle,
the universe of the creation-word,
the divine command to Be, that universe
of qualities is beyond any pointing to.

More intelligent than intellect
and more spiritual than spirit.

No being is unconnected to that reality,
and that connection cannot be said.
There, there's no separation and no return.

There are guides who can show you the way.
Use them. But they will not satisfy your longing.
Keep wanting that connection
with all your pulsating energy.

The throbbing vein
will take you further
than any thinking.

The prophet said, "Don't theorize
about essence!" All speculations
are just more layers of covering.
Human beings love coverings!

They think the designs on the curtains
are what's being concealed.

Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Don't claim them. Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.

Or say, " I cannot praise You
as You should be praised.
Such words are infinitely
beyond my understanding."

Monday, October 8, 2007

From My Heart And Eyes...

Love is a dormant state of awareness in most of us. It is a mysterious force that implants itself in the hearts and souls of humans. At conception this mystery expresses itself through two people and at birth it becomes a physical being through nature. Every child born in physical form, is love manifested in pure expression. I don't think there is anyone who would dispute the fact that a newborn is the essence of love, formed by the seed of this great mystery that lives within us.

We all are an example of that love. We are filled with it. It is the whole part of who we are, and it never leaves us. But, we forget that fact as we travel through time, and view the self as someone who does not know what love is or how to find it.

We search everywhere for this feeling of connection; Love is an elusive entity that we see and sense around us, but we can't find within us since we are conditioned to look outside of the self.

The foremost reason for dis-ease is not remembering who we are. We believe we are not worthy of love. We attract fear and suffer the effects of separation simply because we do not love this self in physical form. We say, it's too big or small, too poor or wealthy; too ugly or beautiful; too sinful or hateful. Little by little we destroy our physical form, because we conform to the rituals of self-worthlessness. We don't love the self; that would be an act of conceit and egomania.


Guiraut de Bornelh explains love this way:




So, through the eyes love attains the heart:

For the eyes are the scouts of the heart,

And the eyes go reconnoitering

For what it would please the heart to possess.

And when they are in full accord

And firm, all three, in the one resolve,

At that time, perfect love is born

From what the eyes have made welcome to the heart.

Not otherwise can love either be born or have commencement

Then by this birth and commencement moved by inclination

By the grace and by command

Of these three, and from their pleasure,

Love is born, who with fair hope

Goes comforting her friends.

For as all true lovers

Know, love is perfect kindness,

Which is born- there is no doubt- from the heart and eyes.

The eyes make it blossom; the heart matures it;

Love, which is the fruit of their very seed.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

A Loftier Race?

These things shall be- a loftier race Than e'er the world hath known shall rise With flame of freedom in their souls, And light of knowledge in their eyes

John Symonds, the English novelist, children's author, and playwright, was born in 1914. His poem of a loftier race sounds like it came from a children's book. But, not just kids take those thoughts to heart and imagine them to be real. We all like to read about such myths and fantasies. We put the self in dreams and live them for a moment, and find the experience real in some innate way.

Ken Wilbur one of our modern day philosophers had something to say about that sort of experience:

Notice what it is that you call "you"- you might notice two parts of this "self": (1) there is some sort of observing self, an inner subject or watcher. (2) there is some sort of observed self, some objective things that you can see or know about yourself, such as I am a father, mother, doctor, clerk etc.

The first is experienced as an "I," the second as a "me" or even mine. The first self is the proximate self since it is closer to "you"; and the second is the distant self since it is objective and father away. Both of them together, along with other sources of selfness are called the overall self.

Ken's thoughts and Symonds poem are related in the fact that the inner self is watching the distant self, and lighting a flame of knowledge. This knowledge is an aspect of awareness. Knowlwdge is realizing that this journey through time and space is the playground of dreams, and the theater for the play we write for ourselves. It is the manifestations of our impulses, thoughts, beliefs, and desires.

We all are part of that enlightened race. A race with the knowledge of eternity in our souls. A race with love deeply rooted in our bodies and minds. A race that is a whole part of another whole.

We experience our beliefs and become what we believe. Our flame of freedom burns every life experience. All we need to do is become aware of what makes that flame brighter.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

I'm Protoplasmal Primordial Atomic Globule!

I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering.

In 1885, Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, The Mikado, opened in London. The opera allowed the producers to satirize British politics and institutions by disguising them as Japanese. There's nothing funnier than holding a mirror up to the self and thinking we see someone else.

We want to be more than we think we are because we are more than we think. Our beliefs about the nature of consciousness hinder us from searching within for the protoplasm dripping from every cell.

We are all part of the primordial atomic globule that exists within the creases of our consciousness. The inner self is inconceivable, yet we conceive it physically, to emotionally feel the experiences we create.

This reality is a comic opera, and we are the directors and actors that make our physical production special. We don't have to believe that fact for it to be real. Real only exists because our play tells us to think what we create is real.

Friday, March 30, 2007

We Belong To Each Other!

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other

Mother Teresa words can be interpreted in many different ways. We all have a sense of belonging. That fact is apparent in our families, friends, churches, and business structures. It's important to belong to someone or something; it gives us the comfort of knowing we are not in this life drama alone.

We have a physical connection with others who are similar to ourselves and connection brings us love, laughter, and rewards, as well as anger, pain, and judgment. We balance all these emotions within our individual consciousness and project our own type of peace into our world. Our lives have purpose; we have a sense of unity.

I took part in a writers tele-conference last night and there were some technical difficulties that prevented the moderator from connecting to the number. Graciously, one of the other participants took over the conference, and tried to help connect the person who was having problems getting in. Most of the people on the call(about 20) didn't know each other personally; we had each read something the others had written, but that was all we knew of each other. When the temporary moderator tried to get our original leader connected, the rest of us on the call were disconnected, and that happened twice. Rather than being frustrated, annoyed or angry about the situation, each participant called back to continue the conference. On the third attempt our original moderator was on line and we began our discussion, and had a wonderful meeting and learned some things that would have been missed if we would have just not called back.

This group of strangers wanted to connect and have a peaceful feeling of energy exchange. We belonged to each other and shared our well-being in the form of writing. We had formed a new family from that call and everyone benefited in some way.

Mother Teresa looked at the picture of who we are, and how we treat each other. It is easier to belong to the ones closest to you, but what about those we don't seem to understand? Those we are in physical conflict with?

We do belong everyone just as much as the strangers I met last night. We resolved our differences by communicating with patience, and we learned from the experience. We learned something new about each other and formed a respect that will continue, as we grow. Just by thinking outside of our range of comfort we change our reality at one point in time. Reality is shaped by our beliefs and influenced by notions of belonging.

Monday, March 26, 2007

The Elephant,The Candle, And The Eye Of The Sea

Andrew Harvey's book, Teachings Of Rumi, explains how we establish beliefs, by seeing only a part of reality. It shows the differences we see, looking at the same thing. It describes how we can learn to trust our inner feelings by focusing on them, rather than just seeing things externally.
The work shows us that we are capable of imagining anything, in the face of the unknown, and it becomes real to us. If you touched your spirit in the dark, what would it feel like to you? OK, how about when you shine a light on it?

The Elephant, The Candle, And The Eye Of The Sea
Some Indians took an elephant into a dark house to exhibit it. People entered the house to try and find out what it was like, but since it was too dark for them to see anything clearly, they each had to feel the elephant with their hands. One person put his hand on its trunk and said, "This animal is like a water pipe!" The hand of another brushed its ear; it seemed to him like a fan. Another seized its leg and declared, "The form of the elephant is like a pillar!" Another put his hand on his back and proclaimed, "The elephant is like a throne!"
Each time anyone heard a description of the elephant, he would understand it through the particular part he had touched. According to whichever section of the animal they had encountered, people's affirmations differed. If each of them had held out a candle in the dark, all differences between what they said would have vanished.
The eye of outward sense is only like the palm of a hand; how can you discover an elephant in its totality with just a palm? The eye of the sea is one thing, the foam another; leave the foam aside, and see with the eye of the sea.