Zoom Recording June 6, 2021
Reflections Along the Way
Imagine your beginning. How do you get there?
You have to start before….before what?
Before your awareness of awareness
Here are two descriptions of this “before”:
First, from Longchempa:
Within the expanse of spontaneous presence
Is the ground for all that arises.
Empty in essence, continuous by nature,
It has never existed as anything whatsoever,
Yet arises as anything at all…
And from Ibn ‘Arabi:
...it is not meant...that you are something that exists
Or your attributes something that exists, but it is
Meant that..you never have been nor will be…[for]
You are neither ceasing to be nor still existing…
It is there, where they point, that is the birthplace of Original You.
There is a first moment of awareness before the call responds itself into consciousness. It is in this moment of becoming aware of anything that I become aware that I am. I am in parts and in whole only by virtue of all that of which I become aware.
The manifestation of consciousness at this most primary level of awareness is wonder; it is the unconditional “wow”. This first moment of awareness, is an expression of the union we will experience later with Ishq-Allah, Mahbud-Allah (the ultimate union of Love, Lover, Beloved); for now, call it Wondering, Wonderer and Wonder.
And see what wonders open, what wonders unfold.
From wonder into wonder existence opens; from wow into wow.
And now, we get to tell stories.
Beyond that moment of initiatic awareness, that first “wow”, the mystery that is duality seeks expression, longing to know itself; needing to ask who, what, why, when, where….
And the storyteller is born, to ask and answer those questions over and over and over...who, why, when, where and what, especially what, as in what the heck is happening.
The wonder of this is that within this duality, as tellers of sacred stories, we can already begin to remember from where we have come.
And paradoxically...there’s that word...it is stories that we will use to get us out of our stories. Another way to view stories about stories is, quoting Gary Snyder,“These stories are part of a bigger story that connects us all.”
Stories are one of the most powerful teachers/providers of paradox. Paradox teaches us something about ourselves that nothing else can. What is that?
Remember the sign with arrows pointing in two different directions with the guidance,“This Way”.
An example of paradox is that it is easier for me to sit with the phrase “I am, I am not”, than to try to tell you or more importantly, prove to you who or what I am.
Thus, it is all what it seems to be, yet nothing is as it appears.
As our story unfolds, bewilderment may arise as we come face to face with our inability to comprehend, even in the slightest, just what it is that is going on; and we may learn to fully embrace and accept the essential role of paradox.
Now, I have to say that in dwelling in a world enriched by paradox, perfection becomes a limitation. Freedom from that prison of perfection arises in trying to do the most right thing.
Trying to do the most right thing, not the best or perfect thing, just the most right thing, allows a freedom to realize in each moment the expression of pure presence.
For, as Pir Elias writes,“The beautiful act is an act that fits what a situation calls for.”
What I have done in these few minutes, and indeed, what we have done through this Living Sufism season has implied a linear sequence. First, of course, comes the beginning and then we wonder, so we find a sacred story to answer what we’re wondering about, which introduces us to paradox as an essential aspect of life, which teaches us that trying to do the most right thing, not the perfect thing, is how we find expression of presence in our world.
That is quite a story. I kind of like it. But, truth-time, we know that isn’t at all how life really works. For these things are happening in whatever mysterious sequence or succession is called for at any moment.
We are beginning over and over and will continue until we don’t; every breath we take and make is another beginning and ending. And wonder? What is there in this life not to wonder at or about? From wonder into wonder; and that wonder which is the mystery longing to know itself must tell stories to answer all those questions.
We tell stories all the time, we live a story and then we change it, it changes us and then it all changes again.
And right here is a great example of paradox...who is writing this line right now? How do I know it’s me? Well, I do know it, don’t I? But when I try to get to the stuff of who I am, I discover that all that stuff turns out to be, quoting one particular astrophysicist: “...mostly a series of electron clouds, all bound together by the rules that govern the entire universe…”
What else am ‘I’ sure of that is suspect. Well, when I see the color red, do I pause to remember that I’m seeing the reflection of red; perhaps the object I am calling red doesn’t want me to know its secret, it’s true appearance...so it gives this camouflage of red to trick me. We can intuit or infer its true color, but we can’t see it. And standing comfortably on this good earth, what do I make of the fact that this solid earth that I am standing on is flying around the sun at a speed of 67,000 miles per hour; am I not also flying at 67,000 miles per hour?
When so much of what we believe in our world cannot unconditionally be depended upon, what do we do? How do we decide what we can trust?
We remember. We remember that our goal in this world is not perfection as some neverending achievement. We remember to take one step at a time, be at ease and trust the rest will come. We hold close what Suzanne has given us: Inner presence not outer construction. The most right thing is available all the time, present, ready for us to find and step into.
Finally, remember Beloved Community, as Pir Elias suggested in his Notes, is not only a beautiful future ideal toward which we are called, but that it’s also a reality right here, right now.
“The History of the Universe is the History of Love...”
Last October, in his Notes from the Open Path, Pir Elias invited us to look beyond the raging pandemic to the essential “motions” of the universe. In "The History of Love" he suggested that we see the “breathing” reality in which we exist as arising from the interplay of the “whoosh” of generosity radiating throughout all existence and the “wish” for intimate connection at the core of each being. From the big bang to this moment, the life in which we live and move and have our being pulses in these two seemingly contradictory directions: As Elias writes:
“What can we call this but love? The history of the universe is the history of love. We can feel how the universe’s love story is alive in our own experience, in the feelings of expansiveness (whoosh) and intimacy (wish) that simultaneously appear in our hearts when we love.”
These two ever-active directions—the outflowing and the incoming—are aspects of one reality; they “simultaneously appear in our heart...” in every experience of loving. This is mirrored in the singular act-experience of breathing which always entails exhalation and inhalation, two dramatically different physicalities. In the same way that breathing is one, the whoosh and the wish making everything around us possible, evident, meaningful, is actually one thing as well. Or better said, perhaps: Just as breathing is the union of inbreath and outbreath, Love in its fullness is a union of receiving and giving; of whoosh and wish.
We might also see Beloved Community as a union of being. We might even say that Beloved Community only exists when the duality of me and community are experientially resolved into a vibrant wholeness. The sense that I am a distinct entity serving and being served by a “community” (which also has an independent existence) is, at heart, mistaken. It harbors an inherent dualism masking the deeper possibility: The “whoosh” of generosity through which the world we live in (including our personal bio-system) serves, feeds, enables and even protects us is called into being (and responded to) by the “wish” for belonging—the personal longing, determination, aspiration, curiosity, wonder, eros, etc. driving us into the real. In this sense Beloved Community is that field of unified existence realized when “community” and “self” are experienced as the singular incoming-outflowing of Love.
This may seem like a quasi-mystical, spiritually lofty proposition, available and useful only to those who have “done the work”. But as Elias writes:
“[This]...is not a wishful vision. It’s evident in the history of the universe, in its boundless generosity and its desire for communion. We’re made of it. We’re made of its generous and intimate love.”
Whoosh & Wish
This One – This You - Hu
This One
This Being that you are, that I am, that we be
This being that IS in this moment now
The One, arising.
Simply is.
Hu.
This one, this one that knows wonder
This one that sees and hears and feels,
that moves in to and out of wonder.
This is
You too.
Hu
You sacred story weaver,
You holy being, doing, feeling,
Inhaling and exhaling all that is and all that is not
leaning into the mystery beyond.
Embracing this and that
while self and other meld
and the most-right-thing emerges
like the dawn mist
melting into a lightness of being
still you
Hu
Days continue
With whooshes and wishes.
Sometimes
Just to be - lightly, blowing prayers into the wind, is all there is.
This,
You,
Now,
Hu
I come from one to become many
To become one, once again.
Oh beloveds.
Love and be loved.
Love and be loved beloveds
For that is what you are.
You really are loved
You really are love.
Hu
Touchstones, Breadcrumbs, Reminders, Pointers, Signposts, Signs
Original You
Identity: Transformation that leaves an object unchanged.
If you ask yourself what you're like when you’re “original”.....where do you go in yourself to look?
Here now. No time. No space.
Keep it simple. One breath.
Be at ease.
Being original you, you are purely unique, just like every tree and leaf is original and unique, every drop of rain, every wave.
Wonder
...come to where the meeting is to be, where all is everywhere and nothing can be anymore…
All the time we are in a state of wonder...we are a part of what is wondering
...see any event as if it were the only event that has ever happened in creation, or will happen, then, all will appear miraculous…
From wonder into wonder existence opens
The Sacred Story
The sacred story is round. It has no edges. Remember: it is where we are...we cannot step out of it. There’s no beginning, no middle, no end.
...stories have no separate quality in reality, except as they are played with in our consciousness…
….things are the way they are because we observe them that way… ...stories are here to get us out of our stories
Embracing Paradox
It is all that it seems to be, yet nothing is as it appears.
...proceed along uncertainty to the unknown…
…[we are constantly] being somebody but none of those are who we are...
Know that you cannot experience the unlimited in the unlimited. You cannot be free in freedom. You need a medium. Whether the medium is meditation; whether the medium is music; whether the medium is silence. Just in the same way as the emptiness, the voidness, is unable to realise its own existence without the illusion. This is the beginning of real mystical thinking that you can find woven throughout the Sufi Message once you realise the subtlety of the sentence structures. The incredible vision pointed at, beyond the form. And so, in my opinion, in my humble opinion, in saying that everything is an illusion, we have not destroyed reality. It is up to you to realise that.
The Most Right Thing
It is pointless trying to know where the way leads. Think only about your first step, the rest will follow.
Imagine everything you can imagine, and then keep going. ...the moment is interested in the most right thing…
It just happens...looking back, it has already happened.
Whoosh and Wish
Generosity, the gift of becoming; intimacy, the joy of communion