Surrender: the Quickest Path to Freedom

You are eternal, full of infinite knowledge and grace.
It is not knowledge that any of us need to be seeking.
It is only to bow down to the starry sky, to bow down
To the heart beat, resonating in the chest, to bow down
To the cricket and the bee. All these things are
The doorway to knowledge. When you bow, you let
Go of the notion of separation. You become
Surrendered to that which moves you. And when you surrender,
you become part of.
So bow down to all of it, even that which
You despise. For it is the quickest path toward freedom.

In the beginning, we know infinity is not a concept.
We know it is a feeling in the bones, of love,
Mixed with air and pace and timeless awareness.
It is only the forgetting that we need to address.
Remember who you were before you even knew
What it was to be you. When you knew only experience.
It is a very young age in which we know only experience.
But this is how it is when we remember.
How it is when we merge with infinity.

Why do I look for you? (Posted in honor of my teacher)

When I wrote this, I was contemplating my relationship with the Divine Beloved. I post it in honor of my teacher, David, who has left his body, and now resides deep in the hearts of those who love him; in the greater Heart within and without. His teaching continually turned his students toward the awareness of the Infinite Within, the unnameable Essence that makes up all of life.

Why do I look for you,
when you are my eyes?
Why do I pray to you,
when you are my voice?
Why do I long for you, all
the while, you are my
breathing in and my breathing out?

Oh Beloved. Keep me awake
in this temple.
Let the ways of your Heart
be known within my own.
Let my feet mark your footsteps.
Let my hands be your blessing.
Grace is seated at my doorstep.
I open the door to my heart,
and she is there, offering
a drink from the fountain
of Eternal Compassion.
I call, Oh Beloved, and
I hear you answer the same.

Hearts of Light: Remembering A Teaching

I was walking in Mercer County Park this morning, and contemplating loss. After losing my spiritual teacher, David LaChapelle (in body anyway) to a battle with cancer, I have been watching the teaching aspects of grief. Today, these words came to me while walking: Life's griefs and struggles break our heart open again and again, so that eventually, the heart no longer can contain the light we are made of -- the light streams right through.

From a non-dual perspective, facing our pain is to also face the beauty. For there is no separation between these seemingly opposing aspects of experience. And the beauty, just like the pain, is astounding. In one of his emails to his students during his illness, my teacher said, "In the end, it's all about surrender." Surrender to what is before us: whether it be pain or pleasure or something in between.

Walking in the woods today, remembering my teacher, the woods never looked so beautiful. I remembered how he told me once to stand in one place, then turn, more slowly than I thought possible, in a full circle. While I was turning, he told me to take in everything in my surroundings. I was in Silverton, Colorado, visiting him at his home. I took in the grass, the little variations of grasses, the mountain air, the distant mountains, his modest wooden home, the gazebo where he led his students in chant and meditation. As I turned, my heart burst with the fullness of all that I saw. It was so painfully bright, because I was taking it all in --really paying attention, with my heart, to all that life was providing at that very moment. The woods today were like that. Bright green shrubs against the dark trunks; woody roots against soft sand, the smell of moss and ferns.

I have lost someone so dear, I can hardly bear it. And yet, looking around, I can see that he is close as breath. Because there is no separation. There is only being here, in vast stream of light we can only begin to touch with our awareness.

...
An exercise: Stop what you are doing, and take a deep breath. Listen to the sound of your breathing, a function that happens all on its own, without having to will it. Consider all of the functions of the body that happen spontaneously, without effort on your part. Consider all of the ways in which it is a miracle that you are appearing just now, where you are, in this place and time. Greet the person you see next with this kind of awareness.