Full circle

Full Circle-Personal awakening

I haven`t written for a few weeks-and now I feel I am at a point of awakening. Not that I am Buddha under the Bodhi tree, but we each have to awaken to certain aspects of being s to proceed further. I have to leave much baggage behind, throw it out, as it is simply a hindrance—things I know, things I have learnt as they absolutely have no use at all for.  Previous knowledge, useless ---as in reality truth is very simple, I always had it as soon as I realized the presence of God—at age four. I am no different now—and know not more at all. Yes—as the Bible says—everything old has become new again—thus I have cone full circle.

It all about getting rid of ego to some extent--never mind some--MOST-, though I am far from being rid of it totally—but at least now I understand the important question—and still a long way from the answer. I can at least now distil it down further and recognize its importance.  I feel now that in truth-I don`t even have to search any more as I have found it—just have to be further immersed in it.  No more questions, no more theories, no more new ideas—all is very simple which I knew all along—GOD, whom is LOVE-and to be in union with HIM. In fact back to square one—with more understanding or realization of all that which I already knew, have always known. You—sweetheart, are still desperately searching in a way, yet you possess it. All those  things that you know with your conscious mind, —put it behind you—and walk the path—of life, with the twins, in the light, as well as me. We are one finally—that is the reality of things—that what this life is about—our union, our bond, the reason of this incarnation. We both know this, have always known this—you more so than I.

I am now at the realization that I once more stepped into a new times span, stepped onto a new path, new reality—as sort of cleansing of all the flotsam and jetsom of things in my life. All is for a purpose—and now I have a clear vision of where I am going, what I need to lose, what to forget as it does not help in the progression of my soul. We are looking for some grand revelation—yet all we need to do is look at creation and the answers are there staring us in the face. We don`t need to study anything, except one thing—what we find resonance with, and that can come in one single moment—of many lifetimes.  Needs no education, no knowledge nor wisdom—for all IS.

I need nothing –for all that I need I have—and it boils down to a few simple points—yes, I know this word  is aggravating to you, but it is true, for complex is not ever good, play of ego.  Wanting to demonstrate its importance—its pride, its separation from others. Key—I see which we both lack –and still need to battle with is—lack humility=stamping out our ego!  We have been to many places—regarding exploration of spirit, yet  we have been no-where—for we always have been where we are  only failed to realize it.

This exercise of re-visiting all the old ideas, knowledge—well it isn`t knowledge anyway, but a power struggle of ego with spirit. Now—it is as clear as a bell, I have to leave behind totally as it is useless.

Now you may well ask what is then important to me now?  I still think the “social myth” has had the closest of the answers—maybe that is why you are angry and mad at him for pointing out the obvious—for it is real easy, and tell us that we are far less spiritual than a religious peasant woman or the meditative yogi on the banks of the Ganges who has no earthly possession whatsoever.

We are still hung up on the material, no matter how we try to cut and dice it—just trying to find good excuses to explain away our materiality—trying to feel important, or rather pretend that we or on a spiritual path. All these years of study simple took us back to the beginning—as one of your blogs stated—“walking backwards”—remember?

Yes—I  have stepped into a new light—of “forgetting” all the useless information that clutter up the line. Spring cleaning of sorts, deleting information and letting it go—detaching from it entirely.

Now—all of the study, the searching , the quest can be put in one short paragraph—to be followed, practiced and lived. I hope it is not late, but as I have learnt—while we are alive it is never finished, neither is it late.  People turn up in our live for a reason—we are both teacher and student at the same time—if we allow it.

And the paragraph is, in word association metaphors—like Gino did in his simplicity, humility and great knowledge of spirit;--yes he is beyond us sweetheart, without study, without search, without education—for he just knows  what “IS”, instinctively. So then I ask the question—whom is the superior soul—us or him? The only person that really gets it at a soul level is Gino—definitely not us. We think we do because of our over inflated ego—we know nothing either about life nor love. He does and sure is teaching me much about spirit, he towers above us in spirituality, I am truly humbled by him and so very thankful. Yes-God works in mysterious way in our lives, for darling we have a long way to go to reach our true destination, we have hardly begun—Gino is almost there.

The divine paragraphs that define me and my life, define us, You and I— Faith ; and the devotions

The faith:

God-The  Father, Son, Holy Spirit- Jesus-Our Lady, Immaculate Heart- -Tri Murti(B-S-V) Brahman/Sarawasthi/Gayatri, -Vishnu/Lakshmi/-Ram/Sita , Krishna/Rhada-Shiva/Paravati/Kali= Shaki in all forms-Ganesha -Hanuman-and various 10 incarnations of Vishnu/and all manifestations/.

The devotion:
Sacred Heart, Immaculate Heart, Rosary (all mysteries contained in it), Loreto, Divine Mercy, Consecration, Lord and my God, Memoriam, Credo, Our Father, Hail Mary, Hail Holy Queen, Mantra Gayatri meditation/mantra, Hare Krishna—Contemplative prayer/centering prayer-Cloud of Unknowing

Blessed Mother, St Jude, St Francis, St Anthony, St John Paul ll, St Theresa and Thomas Merton, Corapi, Price, Bhakti Yoga

Undetermined mission

These few weeks have been an interesting experience—I know all is for a  reason, and though I have not asked for anything things seem to be unfolding in a very un-usual way. I am still not sure—in what context. I certainly am not prepared for many things, including an other life, however the people that seem to be turning up in my life seem to suggest otherwise. It seems to frighten  me a bit--. But--like the river we flow on through undetermined territory, and unless we let go of those rock and be a little damaged in the process, we then just seem to mark time. So--letting go is the message.

What I am still learning—that each experience brings with it an entire new focus, and a new light. I am also realizing that I am very different in all ways—to many. No—not in an exceptional way—but in the way I need to look at my life and mission. I think much has to do with G, though it seems to be a most difficult situation—for before one can proceed forward, the other person needs to be awakened—he isn`t. Maybe now he is thinking about it—and his “over-soul” is whispering louder as time passes by with realization of past happenings, and his own mission. Be that we are connected on the same journey or not. But—for sure there is something to be understood and learnt—and at this time it is a bit blurred.

To all intense and purposes—in reality I should not be even there—for I am a bit uncomfortable at the situations—and I feel no connections to anyone whatsoever. Perhaps—now as I see—maybe M, but that is still far early to determine. The situation is becoming less comfortable-as I see no complements at all in anyway or form—and I don`t have the need either. So why am I here? I know I have to be, and I know I cannot quit.

My days as well as my nights seem to be filled more and more with pre-occupation with this—it is almost like a mission, yet I know there is no reason for me to be thus. I have placed it all in Her hand and do not ask Her reason—just follow Her voice.

On God/Merton letter

“God is where God isn’t”: Thomas Merton’s Letter to KC on Unbelief

[Thomas Merton’s letters, as improvised and grammatically unkempt as they often are, reveal his “religious consciousness” at certain periods of his life in ways his edited published works could not. This letter is one of the most “revealing” of his private thought under his published thoughts. One also notices how seriously he connected with strangers who wrote to him. Merton virtuously and exquisitely practiced “monastic hospitality”.]

November 10, 1966, To Katharine Champney 

You ask a very relevant question which I probably cannot answer. If I assure you that I am only thinking as I go along, improvising maybe, you will understand that I am not really claiming to know much more about it than you do, and am certainly not in a position to clean up “problems”, religious or otherwise, with a wave of the hand. All I can say is that I think I am looking at it from a vantage point which is not yours and not that of your religious friends either. Whether I can make that comprehensible or not, I don’t know. But let me say at the outset: there are many reasons why I think the whole question of whether or not one is a believer has become an impossible one to handle—and whether or not it matters. Of course, in the abstract, it matters, it is crucial, it is the question, etc., etc. (at least I know that the choice is presented that way). But in the concrete, historically, there has been much noise and confusion and the whole thing has become so impossibly obscure (what with all the fighting and nonsense there has been) that, to my mind, anyone who has never had serious doubts has something the matter with him. You should doubt. When your friends say they think you are a believer, they are paying you the compliment of saying you respect the truth enough to be honest about it, and, if you can’t see something, you don’t say you see it. 

Now that is precisely it. That is precisely what I do, too. Believing is not only not seeing, but it is also a staunch refusal to say you see what you don’t see. I was a non-believer until the day it dawned on me that the absolute void of nothingness, in which I could not possibly see anything or hear anything, was also the absolute fullness of everything. This was not so much a religious insight as a metaphysical or Zen-like one, and the religious implications followed later, without changing the essentially negative view (since there cannot possibly be an adequate idea of God). To put it crudely, your “unnamed something”, without ceasing to be pure Nothing, suddenly ran over me like a truck. The trouble with saying this is that it may just confuse things more: so let me make it clear that I am not suggesting that you have to wake up one morning feeling that way. I am just saying that this is the way it is metaphysically (being is structured like this) and some people may have a special capacity for realizing it, which maybe I have, being a poet, a person able to cope with religious myth, familiar with religious and literary traditions, etc., etc., etc. But that doesn’t mean anything, and it does not change the fact that, if you don’t see it, it doesn’t matter. 

“Alone.” But I am utterly alone in the Void. God is not an “object” I am “with” and it is useless to listen to “hear him”—just as useless as trying to see the eyes you see with. You just see, and everything falls into place. Again, if you don’t, it doesn’t matter. You obviously have some other way of getting at it. Your formulation “unnamed something that at once binds us together…” is the same as the “ground of my-our being.” It is a philosophical rather than a religious insight, okay. 

Now, you will be irritated with me and I think I have got away with the dirty trick I promised I would not play: that I am insidiously robbed you of your unbelief. That I have elevated you in spite of yourself to the cozy level of believers. No, I have not. You are an unbeliever. The only thing is that I am also, but in a different way. You will come back at me, and of course, if you read some of my (early) books, you will point out that I have given evidence of a whole superstructure of religious ideas, meditations, experiences, and so on. What people don’t seem to notice is that in the same breath, as I say all these things, I also say “but that is not it”. 

So the position where I am is different from yours only in this: that I am perfectly happy with traditional religious concepts, I can use them, I see how far they go, and—I also see that they really go nowhere. No matter what you say, no matter what you experience, no matter how often you “hear” God, etc., etc., it is all zero. It is nothing. It is misleading. It is a bum steer, except for those who understand it in the right way. In the end we all get back more or less to where you are in the first place, “un-named something…” Of course, there is Christ. But “He emptied Himself taking the form of a servant…the death of the Cross…” This is the same reduction of the whole thing to zero, to unnamed something, you don’t know what it is, you have no control over it, you can’t call out and be answered at will, you have no right to expect an answer anyway (“you” now means me too). In a word, the fact that I am a believer does not give me in any way the kind of advantage you assume: that I am entitled to voices and consolations which are denied you. 

All I am entitled to is my particular direction, which is a straight line into the void and the wilderness without having to look over my shoulder and see whether anyone else is coming along. I know plenty of people are coming along: people like you, who are in the same wilderness, but who can’t quite understand it in the same way. And honestly, I don’t think it matters. The “consolations of religion” are something that, in your concrete case, you are just as well without—if they are going to mislead you into thinking you have got something when you have them. 

That is my quarrel with religious people. They are selling answer and consolations. They are in the reassurance business. I give you reassurance whatever except that I know your void and I am in it, but I have a different way of understanding myself in it. It is not that much more delightful. But it does to me make a great deal of sense—for me. I will say this, that it is to me after all reassuring to be able to run into Zen people and Moslem masters and so on and realize we understand each other perfectly. And I hasten to say that you don’t have to feel all that alone either. Incidentally, in an earlier and less chastened version of that article, I said that really I felt much more at home with unbelievers than with believers.** In a sense I do. But I can’t that easily evade the embarrassment that Church people cause in me perpetually. 

So, friend Katherine, I am not Father Merton inside the warm Church calling you to come and sit by the fire of positive thinking or something. I am out in the cold with you because (forgive the flip saying) God is where He isn’t. And maybe that’s where the Church is, too (when all the miters are off and the vestments are hung in the closet). I won’t run on anymore, but I think I have said enough to make clear that I think the whole business of faith and the message of faith is in the process of finding a whole new language—or of shutting up altogether. Hence the answer to your question: if God does not speak to you, it is not your fault, and it is not His fault, it is the fault of the whole mentality that creates the impression that He has to be constantly speaking to people. Those who are the loudest to affirm they hear Him are people not to be trusted. But, nevertheless, there is a way of understanding that non-hearing is hearing. Maybe it is all too subtle.

**See Merton’s articles “The Unbelief of Believers” and “Apologies to an Unbeliever” in the collection Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching and Christian Practice (University of Notre Dame Press, 1968)
[Thomas Merton Witness to Freedom: Letters in Times of Crisis. William H. Shannon, editor (New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994): 327-329]

Heart & Soul

I have to say one thing about your regard for —heart and soul is not what one would call; ”or spiritual ”—however  all in the name of spirit. Not that I am an intellectual giant like yourself, however I am deeply disturbed, disappointed and offended by your behaviour. I did not deserve it at all--neither do you for what all this has started. 

You really think that this will actually progress either you or I ahead, hardly—all is written almost as a sacrifice for love, in the code of “love” according to you, by you. How mistaken you are.—Ah so sweet your website, so holy, so spiritually educating. Though—it would be of benefit to actually live the words. Don`t you think?  The loving—philosophical, spiritual writer, the saintly minister, the enlightened yogi, "souls"director, the enlightened  one with the “Buddha nature”—You who has destroyed all that is good, holy and sacred, worthy, godly within us, in the name of ego—meaning your over inflated one. I have no idea how or why I can love you the way I do. You have betrayed me in every possible way, soul and spirit wise –betrayed us, sold us  for less than 30 pieces of silver. I most definitely hope it was worth it.  There is no escape as to the re-percussion, I know there is, or will be. But--I have come to terms with it, I accept the will of God, as I always do--it is always for the best.

Really—God is playing a huge joke on me—but you as well, equally. Trust me you may think you are immune but you are not in the least.  God must be laughing in heaven regarding both you and I. We wilfully and knowingly have destroyed all our soul connections to each other-- have had a deep soul-connections and we were tested, and we failed the test. 

You, the super mental genius—a full page,--your counterpart and totally in the opposite extreme  a most brilliant light, but an empty page, though—as I see I wonder whom is really whom as you both seem to be interchanging positions. At times I am confused and wonder what is the lesson here for me/?—Or for all three of us? Maybe it is balance for me—for you is to downgrade a bit—and for the other to upgrade a bit- in a way also to reach and find to find that balance also. Thus all three of us are within this circle of transformation, of change of ascension to a higher plane.

Oxygen

These days I don`t drink at all—very little for one glass takes me over the edge and it is the key to unlock my heart, and I fall into the inferno of hell—and that is in buckets ; very dangerous for me. Then all possibilities arise, thus I try and keep clear. But—at times I have the need to remember—and then tears fall like rain from the sky—God I so wish I had never heard your name yet , I bless the day I heard it.  We are cursed and blessed , I am at least—you seem to be fine. I—not so, I am simply surviving all this with great difficulty and pain—and there is no end in sight—at all; at all. I have no idea why I did in my past life to deserve this—for in this life I have always tried to do the very best regarding all—yet it is not enough. Many days I curse the day put up Assisi, some days I  am in total gratefulness —I am so confused, and lost. It is a weakness to need another soul .  I so want to tear every memory from my mind and it is impossible--.It is all those letters—I curse and bless them that have put me in this position--.  I have not the emotional integrity, energy or the courage to burn them.

This is not spiritual advancement, but spiritual torture—and it is coming to a time when I shall be no longer to carry on with it. I know that probably not even reading this, that is fine—your spirit will know. I am just at the end of my rope and all. I am so depressed, lost, sad and invisible. My nights are filled with phantoms and all sorts of imaginings  —You see the thing is had you been more controlled with your words I would not feel such pain—but you said so much that I cannot forget . Whether you meant it or not—that is for you to know, but they were written, thus I binds me and I have no way of escape--.I cant break the binds, though they maybe simply thin as silk spider`s webs. Next time—learn: never say so much, especially if it is not what you feel. Though only know what you felt at that particular moment, maybe you did—I am no judge, but I feel so very awful, and terrible it is beyond all comprehension—my heart is in millions of pieces, broken and lost never to be found.

Yes—all my fault for having such a sensitive heart, soul as to allow you in—God I wish I were dead , truly. So many days—I love our Lady each morning my first words are to Her—but at times I feel She has abandoned me—though I am sure She hasn`t , just testing my love for Her. I adore and love Her, all is offered in trust to Her—and see what is happening. I lost You, I have lost all I have ever loved –all that I am.

And you—just –going on with your life, and I—am just lost., broken  I just don`t know what to do—I just don`t know. I so need you like oxygen, yet you are gone….what am I going to do?  What am  to do?

I simply don`t have the strength , courage, fortitude or energy to read your writings--which I haven`t. I so wish I could, I can`t for it will kill me. Just so you know it is not for lack of love, but for love. I wish I could just simply escape from this world. 

Old letters

Letters written in the heat of passion, are simple abominable things, they tear at the soul when one holds them in the heart. Yet I cannot help to read the odd one—without searching any out, simply the one that comes into my hand,and hold it to my heart—and it causes me such terrible pain, anguish and suffering. I would advise anyone who has ever loved to read it as it arrives and turn it into ashes immediately—and cast it at the wind. Destroy it as soon as possible—for as time goes by it ingrains itself into the very fabric of the soul and slowly it keeps eating away at it. It erodes, destroys it cell-by-cell, with excruciating pain and torture until it exists no longer—this is what we have done to each other in the name of love. If this is love—I will never want to have any part of it, even if God Himself offers it to me.  The worst is your silence—that will actually kill me in the end I know for sure, I can feel it, and I know it. I have never mentioned this to anyone, but it will happen, for there comes a point when all tips over.

I have a many of these letters –myself from you as you know, which probably you have forgotten—but for me they are ever present and within every moment of my life. I have tried to change myself, I have tried to move on, I tried to see other people, I have prayed, I have begged God –but to no avail to remove you from my heart, soul and mind. I suppose—I am not one of the favourites of My Lady, though all that I do is dedicated to Her. I am so lost, overwhelmed and pained that it is impossible to convey its complexity and depth.  I am just totally and utterly forsaken –in every aspect of my life. I just don`t understand it all—I cannot accept as I have done nothing but love you and God—and here I am in the very depth of desolation, loneliness and darkness. Nothing helps—nothing. No way out at all, never will –this is the way it shall all end.  I guess for all of us, not just me—life is rather finite and short—I can`t wait for it to end, truly. I just can`t wait. No—it is not feeling sorry for myself at all, it is just the recognition of all the futility of life, of existence and the hopelessness of everything within our experience.

But we asked for it, and we got it—and now the eternal suffering, the torture, the endless nights of regret , of longing of how things were or should be—yet we created it ourselves. I still have no idea why? No matter how I have tried to replace you I can`t—why is that ? Punishment from God  for loving you too much—serves me right—but we have free will that is still left.  Much is possible . I have thought about many possibilities, and have tried some as well—but simply no way out at all no matter how I tried, approached it.  I am bound—in very way and form, by invisible chains. There are only limited versions of escape, and none are very pretty—but escape non the less.

I am truly sorry –I don`t blame you entirely , but my self just as much. We just should not have fell in love—should not have allowed our passions to rise to such height and lose our souls to each other entirely--. The word ”lost” is a bad description—it is more of an a amalgamation, which now so fused, that separation now is impossible. I know you may think this differently—for you always have some intellectual  philosophical explanation of being—but this one you cannot explain away—ever.  Never will—and at the end of your life and mine—we shall be like Beethoven—and lament over what and how it should have been. How we messed up our God given gifts –that we ourselves destroyed though our own ego.

I am beyond all, I am beyond redemption and I am beyond reason—all I know that all is completely finished for me in every way and form. As for you—Write, for that is your need, your escape, salvation—but expect no miracle, for miracles do not exist for us here on earth—probably elsewhere neither. Thus is the wisdom of our God. 

All   I ask  of you is to remember me the odd time—for we do have so many happy memories—all is in our mind—nothing else exists. We were there, we always shall be there under that Jacaranda tree—the one we love so much and the one that always keeps us safe in its embrace. I love you so very much--as I always have, do and will always and forever. Don`t ever feel sorry for me ever, please.

Alchemy of love

 

Rumi ~ The Alchemy of Love

You come to us from another world;
From beyond the stars and a void of space
Transcendent, pure – of unimaginable beauty.
Bringing with You the essence of Love.
You transform all who are touched by You -
Mundane concerns, troubles and sorrows dissolve in Your presence
Bringing joy to ruler & ruled, to peasants and kings.
You bewilder us with Your grace;
All evil is transformed into goodness.
You are the Master Alchemist!
You light the fire of Love in earth & sky,
In heart & soul of every being.
Through Your loving, existence & non-existence merge -
All opposites unite -
All that is profane becomes sacred again.
~Rumi