Category Archives: self realisation

When You Say It All in a Text Message

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It wouldn’t be quite correct to say that I never get calls or texts on my phone. What would be correct is to say is that the vast majority are to do with what I might call The Bureaucracy: Reminders of Doctor and dentist appointments, notices from various government bodies, library notices; all that kind of thing.

And there is another emerging category that’s actually a lot more welcome: while my partner hermit and I have always phoned each other, lately we’ve been texting more and more as an extra way to communicate with each other.

Sometimes these texts are about the mundane things we all have to do in the world, but then there’s another dimension in which texting allows us to keep in touch with each other’s feelings, thoughts, doings, and simply as a means of keeping the connection open and strong.

The other day, for example, such a text arrived unannounced in my phone. Like some I get from The Bureaucracy, this one was essentially a little series of reminders. But rather than being about the things of the outside world, these ones, in this text, spoke directly and deeply to the enrichment of the inner life – my inner life.

Powerful messages, all of them, that really go to the heart of one’s (my) efforts to live a life more centred on my spiritual quest and my commitment to living more in sync with Absolute Reality.

On first reading of this text (and on each rereading, of which there have been many), I really felt strongly that I needed to contemplate deeply and prayerfully on the pieces of this whole. And, as well, to share my reflections with you.

Sit in your cell as in Paradise

This little – yet tremendous – injunction references an answer to a question posed to Abba Moses, one of the early Desert Fathers:

Go sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.

Essentially Moses’ advice is, remain within the confines of your dwelling place – whatever and wherever form that place takes. This can be a literal geographical location, or even your own body as it moves in the world. We all have a body, we all dwell there.

Sitting in one’s cell is not a simple or passive activity. It is in fact hard work as we wrestle with the mad monkey mind, and attempt to grow spiritually.

So, what about the ‘as in Paradise’ bit? Well, to me this feels very much like thinking of one’s cell as the place to be. What I mean to say is that it’s the only you can possibly be in right now, in the present of the here and now.

It’s not about judgements of is it good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, painful or not. Just acceptance of where youu’re at right now. Doesn’t mean you’re stuck there and by no means suggests you resign yourself to your circumstances. It simply means you see it like it is, at this moment.

And it’s about understanding that, while you are in that place, it’s where you know you need to be. Your cell – your dwelling place – has within it everything you need to live, grow, learn, and prosper in the spiritual life.

Whatever the ‘place’ you are in is like, we can try to cocoon ourselves, make a space within the space, even if it is just being aware of our bodies sitting in the space. Cocoon myself is an expression I’ve been using lately to describe the act of isolating myself in any way I can from my surroundings. This can apply on the macro scale or the micro as we seek to centre ourselves and find quiet and a peaceful place.

It’s not as if in this cocoon (or whatever it might be)  that  all will be bliss and light all of a sudden. No, I think the suggestion here is we try to develop an attitude of non-attachment towards the things of the world that trouble us, those things that cause us suffering, precisely because we are attached to them.

That is the purpose of sitting in your cell. That is the everything that your cell will teach you.

You know my friends, I’m a bit weary tonight, and with your permission I will continue with this sharing of my contemplation, my reflections, in my next post.

Thank you for staying with me.

Peace and love

Paul the Hermit

Are the Hermit Pilgrims Settling Down?

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Stand by for an announcement:

The Hermit Pilgrims have signed a lease for the rent of a house for a year. Not only have we signed a lease, we have, in fact as of yesterday, been residing in the said leased property.

Admittedly, it’s exactly the sort of small house which we had in fact been longing for for some time. It’s got many characteristics that make it for us, the ideal site for a hermitage: we even have a temple room!

The lease is for a year initially, and if,  after a year we feel led to move on, then that’s what we shall do. But for now, – as in the present moment that is the ongoing now, the only ‘time’ one can talk about with any meaning or truth – we will be in the one hermitage, the one safehaven by the side of the road, for a longer period than in any other in the last many years.

Anyway, enough of this reflection on the nature of time; the big question on your mind I am sure is why? Well, the first little thing to say is that the pilgrimage goes on; it’s just that we’ve taken a tiny step towards the vow of stability many monks and nuns make as a matter of course. We’ve not really ever taken such a vow before. Mind you, a lease is a binding document, I wonder does that count as a vow?

Of course, as I’ve just laboriously spelled out, there is only the moment, the ongoing now; so who can possibly say about ‘a year’?

Next, let me tell you a bit about a book I’ve read a few times and like very much. It will possibly give you a flavour of the why.

Cave in the Snow  by Vicki Mackenzie tells the story of Tenzin Palmo, a Tibetan Buddhist nun and her, I think, twelve years in solitu6de in a nearly all year round snowed in cave in the high Himalayas.

Tenzin Palmo had been living in a rather remote monastery, but felt after some years the need for greater isolation and solitude. The monastery was too busy and noisy, with all sorts of comings and goings.

There was too much entanglement with the greater society in the form of the surrounding villages and town. She wanted some quiet basically

In an interview sometime after she came down from the mountains she was asked if going to a cave was perhaps an escape, an ‘evasion of the trials of an “ordinary” life. Her reply spoke to me when I first read it about 20 (or more?) years ago, and still does today:

‘Not at all. To my mind worldly life is an escape,’ she replied to the interviewer. ‘When you have a problem you can turn on the television, phone a friend, go out for a coffee. In a cave, however, you have no one to turn to but yourself.

You have no choice, she says, when problems come up, and when things get tough, but to go through with them, till you come out the other side.

‘In a cave,’ she said, ‘ you face your own nature in the raw, you have to find a way of working with it and dealing with it.’

My situation is not quite like hers. For example there is more than one person in our community of hermits. Still her story does resonate and speaks very much to my own situation.

Not only is there never going to be any absolute certainty in our material world, there is never – ever – going to be anything in the realm of worldly things that will deliver us perfect peace and lasting happiness.

Easy to repeat, this tidbit of transcendental knowledge, but quite another to get oneself unattached to the idea that, well, maybe, just maybe, the next big thing, might just be different, might indeed be the forever answer to peace and happiness.

And it’s that attachment that I’m tackling at the moment.You see I long for a more pure hermit life, a life with a lot less engagement – and entanglement with – worldly things and situations.

I once wrote in a poem called Seeking Noble Truths or Just Passing Through that ‘longing is loss’, and it is, if one is attached or clings to the object of desire, or an outcome being exactly as is envisaged. Not being attached means less disappointment, less suffering, if as often happens, life does its thing and the outcome is not what we hoped it would be.

But here’s the thing: the bonds of my attachments in this area are loosening a little, bit by bit. And the paradox isn’t lost on me either: As I ‘settle’ into our (supposedly) longer term hermitage, I will, I hope, come closer to a point of stillness, of equanimity, and of silence. I will inch even closer to that state where attachments will all just fall away.

Hermit caves take many and varied forms

Now, in no particular order of priority or preference, I’ll try to convey in words some of the reasons we’re opting to continue our pilgrimage in a more long-term hermitage.

To be honest, as hard as I try to be present, to just live here and now, I just like the vast majority of my fellow human beings, find it extremely difficult to not be pulled ahead to the future (or dragged back to the past for that matter).

No sooner have we moved into a new hermitage, then we feel we have to start shopping around for the next one. Of course, one can’t ignore the practicalities, but for me it goes way beyond being a sensible planner.

And to be perfectly frank (I wonder who this ‘frank’ is anyway?) we’ve tired of it. The looking, the thinking, the talking and emailing to prospective places. It’s actually quite boring, to be stuck on that kind of merry-go-round .

It’s also extremely distracting. It gets in the way of our efforts to calm and quieten our minds for extended and deeper meditation and contemplation. Not to mention the ongoing (seems endless sometimes) discussions of the pros and cons of decisions to be made, as well as the frustrating second guessing I’m famous for.

Portrait of a Hermitage

We all know from experience that there is never going to be any absolute certainty in anything we arrange in our lives. Of course I know very well that even a signed, sealed and delivered legally binding contract or lease, means very little if the parties involved put their minds to it or change plans somewhere along the way.

All things in the material world are relative, and always subject to change; there’s nothing we can do to bend that natural law. Given such a context we still feel okay about entering with a right-hearted intention, this agreement for a year (at least) in the new hermitage.

As the residents of the hermitage are prone to say really quite often: ‘Your will, not mine, be done’.

Then, when life does its thing, I’ll be more able to roll with it. Why? Because I will (hopefully) have better learned that it’s not my will that’s to be done, but the Divine Will, the natural law and order of the Universe.

So, If it be your will…

Spotted on a Sand dune: A Poetic Sharing

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With the current hermitage located not so much on the side of the road, as right on the side of a large sand dune system, you might imagine that I am at and on the beach every day.

While almost every day, I walk the track that follows the crest of the dunes in this particular area, I’ve only actually gone down to the beach itself a handful of times.

So, yesterday as start to my resolve to make amends for this omission, I climbed the dune, ignored the crest track leading left and right, and continued straight on and down the other side of the dune, and onto the beach itself. My intent was to spend an hour or so walking along the tide line.

And so it was.

Judging by such rare experience of the beach itself, I might easily say I am no ‘beachcomber’; no discoverer of coastal treasures, little natural beauties from the sea, or even the occasional oddity one might expect washed up. Until yesterday that is.

Not that I went to ‘comb’ the beach: rather I was there trying to put myself on the receiving end so to speak, to be a receptacle for what I might be blessed with (not to forget the need for exercise and movement).

And so it was.

This sense of grace and blessings, I hope I’ve conveyed in the small poetic effort (as well as its companion photo) that I now share with you.

SPOTTED ON THE SAND DUNE

Strolling (briskly mind you) along the sands,
There I was – deep in the liminal zone.
Ankle-deep – sometimes – seawater cooling my feet.
One way to receive Varuna’s blessings.

Back on dry sands (still in the liminal zone) I pause
to examine a spiral shell – an elegant and delicate sea creature.
It lives. Reverently, I move it to deeper water.

As I rise from my small task of union, of reunion,
I glance – still within the liminal zone – upwards.
There, near the crest of the sand dune sits a chair.
An armchair I spotted right there on the sand dune.

There it was, facing me – and the sea – in the middle of nowhere.
Though this is clearly somewhere for somebody.
The perfect perch for taking in
Pacific views.

Empty chair, lonely sight
overlooking the liminal zone.

When One Word is Actually Two & Becomes One Again

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‘It’s good practis/ce sitting out here.’ So said my partner hermit as we sat sipping post evening meal tea on our little front porch that happens to face exactly due west.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask: ‘Do you mean it’s a good thing (practice) to be doing regularly as in Sadhana,  a spiritual practice? In other words is it a good habit to cultivate?

‘Or do you mean it’s good as a kind of training – as practise – in improving our ability to sit in quiet and stillness?’

As I say, these questions were on the tip of my tongue, but then: Blog Alert!!. So, in a rare moment of triumph I managed to hold my tongue (metaphorically speaking) and let those questions sift through my mind so that later (it’s now the next day) a post to share with you might emerge.

So, here we are, setting the scene for this post. I know it’s about words, about language. Semantics is what it could be about, given that it’s about words and their meanings.

But, aren’t words simply symbols for the things they describe or represent? And so often semantics involves quibbles over meanings.

So let’s not make this about semantics, no quibbling required here. You see what set off the Blog Alert!!! was that here was the one word, that is actually two distinct words each with their own meanings, that just happen to sound alike.

Still no quibbling though: we don’t need to pick and choose between meanings – actual and/or intended. Two words, two symbols, two meanings (one for each word that is), so we can choose not to choose – remember no quibbling.

We can realise that in the context, both words are equal and correct. Both may be acknowledged as being meaningful to and in the moment, to the situation.

Lately I think I’ve been saying quite a lot about silence quiet – quietude – peace and calm. Stillness also. All are the same thing: all are states in which we might realise the truth of our natures as divine.

Same Sun Another time & place

Anyway, we had just finished our evening meal, and now sat with tea, having just witnessed the last remnants of the sun sink below the horizon (or was it the horizon coming up to meet and finally hide the sun?).

Quietly sitting, relaxing you might say, in post sunset peace and quiet, with only the occasional and softly spoken conversation going on.

Then that comment from my partner hermit, sharing that sitting as we were is good practis/ce.

Certainly for one such as me who has great difficulties in being quiet, being still, and cultivating silence, such occasions of quiet sitting (with tea naturally) is excellent practise, good training in the changing of long-established and conditioned habits and behaviours.

And, as such, it is a most excellent practice to cultivate, a great thing to do (I’d say action to take, but somehow that feels not quite right) to cultivate stillness and silence. I’ve written elsewhere that to cultivate or to rediscover silence is to realise that silence already existent as the divine, as consciousness, as all and everything.

My partner hermit is one of the wise ones, a sage. One spoken word that actually contains two words, two symbols, each with its own meaning, that finally merge into One.

No quibbling.

Bright Lights on the Dunefields

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Namaste and Welcome friends.

A poem for your reading pleasure. Written on site today in response to an experience while out walking on the dunes next to the hermitage.

I’m including a photo I made a few weeks ago of the exact place where the poem was written,

And many loving thanks to my partner hermit for the sketch made in the same area today (synchronistically it was made unknown to me and vica versa)

Please enjoy.

Love from Paul the Hermit

BRIGHT LIGHTS IN THE DUNEFIELDS


Today. On the Ocean Track.
Daily hiking across the top of the dunefields.
Not so sure-footed,
I trudge heavy-footed.

As I pass by, there are bright lights in the dunefields.
I pause in my passing as my eyes are drawn
(or is it my heart?)
to the bright lights in the dunefields.

I feast my senses upon
the bright lights in the dunefields.
They bless me, these bright lights.
They sing to me; they speak to me.

In my silence, I hear them.
But I hear not voices.
I see them.
But I see not colours, shapes or forms.

What I see, I see.
I see me, I see you.
They see me,
the bright lights in the dunefields.

They see you; can you see them?
These bright lights in the dunefields.

We are all bright lights in the dunefields.

Details in the Dunefields

On a Pilgrim’s Way

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Today I went on a pilgrimage.Not that I don’t undertake all kinds of little pilgrimages all the time. And even more, it’s not as if my whole life – just like yours and everyone else’s – isn’t one ongoing and continuing pilgrimage.

All true; but this one, today, was embarked upon in what might be called, a classic manner: on foot, to a place of sacred significance, and in a spirit of contemplation of the nature of the journey as well on that which is being pilgrimed too. (I am positive there is no such word!)

In this case, today’s pilgrimage, that place was a church about two and a half kilometres from the  hermitage. It’s a place I have visited several time, but today was the first time I set out as a pilgrim and walked in the way and spirit of the pilgrim.

Our Lady of the Rosary is a Catholic church dedicated to the Mother of Jesus in her role as patron of the Holy Rosary, a Catholic way of prayer that has evolved over time and is a key part of the lives of many Catholic people.

Just to the right, just inside the door there is a plain brick wall in which there is a small niche. The niche holds an almost life-size statue of Mary. She stands, hands folded over her chest on which sits the Dove of Peace.

You can see from the photo that the church itself is a lovely, quiet, serene place full of good vibes and nice peaceful energies. The object, however, of my pilgrimage was not the church in itself, but stood just inside the side door accessed through an equally peaceful, fountain centred garden.

I have come to offer her – this form or manifestation of the Divine Mother – the prayer I wrote to her which I hope you saw when I posted it on this blog recently.

I had decided that my pilgrimage vow would be fulfilled once I had knelt at her feet and offered her the words of my heart in prayer.

My reverence for the Divine Mother is well known, and especially in her form as Mary the Mother of Jesus. Or Our Lady as we called her as good little Catholic children way back in the long ago. And I know I have said often that the entirety of the material and non-material cosmos is a manifestation of the Divine.

So, why then a special trip on foot, that I’m labeling a pilgrimage to a specific site, so I can kneel at the feet of a statue that I know perfectly well is made of stone or plaster and is simply a symbol of one aspect of the Divine?

Actually, the question has answered itself. The pilgrimage and my associated actions worded in that question tell us the why.

It is about acknowledging at a heart level and in my own way, that that symbol, that form, is actually representing a particular aspect of the Divine that I revere.

Besides, I’m not the first person who’s knelt at that spot, at Mary’s feet. I don’t know the age of the church, nor do I know the history of that particular statue, but I think we can say for certain that many hundreds, if not thousands of other people have been there where I was and spoken words from their hearts.

Being honest and true now, what I can say is that, as I said to my partner hermit: ‘I feel like i’ve been on a pilgrimage’.

And I do. I’ve walked – praying and chanting – to a sacred place where I have prayed at the feet of the Divine in the form of a likeness of Mary. I feel blessed that I actually got to offer the prayer I wrote to the Divine Mother.

Somehow I feel a link was established. A heart (mine) opened ever so slightly. I acknowledged the Divine, and I sense that I might just be – ever so slightly again! – topped up with a bit of the Grace that is in reality our true state.

Mary in the Garden (enhanced by a fellow Hermit Pilgrim. 
Thank you)

So, this is the story of my pilgrimage. I was absolutely exhausted when I arrived back at the hermitage. Most likely that was due to the heat, the traffic, and the noise encountered on the way I trod.

But, now I’ve shared this little tale with you, I’m not tired. Anyway, the Way is not always easy, and we are all very well aware of that aren’t we?

Namaste friends. The Divine in me salutes the Divine in you.

It’s a walk to take,

a pilgrimage to make.

Sometime soon.

Said by me long ago, I don’t know when or where. It was one of those ‘You’re a poet and don’t know it’ moments.

Peace!

The Q&A in the Scripture Part 1

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Welcome to the first in a short – and occasional – series centred on a text containing a kind of Q & A session between Krishna (God) and Uddhava (his cousin).

Thirty six questions in all, with which Uddhava asks Krishna how he can live a good and honest life, dedicated to doing right and living the truth.

If you haven’t already, it would be really helpful if you read the Introduction post here, before going much further; just so you have a better handle on the context, the background etc. It will just help to set the scene a little more.

Now that’s been said, let’s get on and into it. The very first question Uddhava puts to Krishna is actually two questions in one.

What is quietude and self-control

Good questions, the both of them, given the circumstances Uddhava finds himself in. His hometown (it’s Krishna’s too) is about to descend into a nasty civil war and is most likely a chaotic, noisy, overwhelming and frightening environment to be stuck in.

Uddhava, like the rest of us just wants a peaceful life, and as to the second question, well he’s bound to be asking himself the same question we’d ask: Why can’t these people just control themselves before it’s too late? Not to mention the onslaught of emotional and mental anguish he’d be suffering himself.

Anyway, Uddhava is about to leave town following his cousin’s advice, and would like to find out how he can go on to live a good, righteous and honest life, while he’s in exile from his home.

Krishna chooses (sensibly I’d say: they’re both big questions) to answer one question at a time and he begins by explaining what is quietude:

Quietude is fixing the mind on me.

Krishna is not saying here: ‘Look, once I’m gone [I think I’ve mentioned that he’s leaving too, going back to Heaven or wherever he lives on a permanent basis] try to remember your dear old cuz in the odd quiet moment now and again will you?’

What I think he is actually saying is: ‘If you fix your mind on me, then that’s quietude’. We could call it silence as well. He’s not saying ‘I am in the silence’, nor is he saying ‘Through silence (or quietude) you will come closer to me’. No, what he says is ‘Quietude is what I am’.

So, what about those of us not in a first names relationship with Krishna? Well, think of Krishna as being a name and form of Universal Consciousness. Yes, the same Universal Consciousness  that is all created and non-created things; the sun, Earth herself, trees, the oceans, all living and non-living beings in the Universe, in all universes if there are more than one.

There are a whole list of synonyms for quietude: equanimity, calmness, peace of mind, rest, serenity, dispassion. Just to name a few.

These further definitions are really quite helpful. What I mean to say is that we rarely if ever associate that calmness, equanimity, peace, and the rest, with actually being the Universal Consciousness, that is also all of us and everything else that is. Again, think of Consciousness as the Divine, God, or by any other name and form, you attribute to the natural order and flow of the Universe.

Forgive the repetition : Quietude, calmness, peace of mind, are not where you will find God or consciousness, or whatever. They are all consciousness.

The beach is also dog friendly

Have I mentioned that the current hermitage is a cottage on the side of a large sand dune, on the other side of which is a stunning stretch of Pacific Coast beach. Sitting on the top of the dune and looking out over the beach and ocean it is easy to think of all that’s seen as divine.

It is most definitely a peace of mind, calm and quiet inducing experience to sit there. Certainly it is quietude itself with the only sounds being the song of the universe in the form of the waves and wind.

A question I asked myself, and I now pose to you: If what we’ve been calling Universal Consciousness is actually all that is, then why not a state of mind like quietude, calmness, balance, and the rest? Like everything else perhaps these states are simply elements of that consciousness or Absolute Reality, or oneness, or what some call God, the Divine, or … ?

In any case, I have a feeling that’s what Krishna was getting at with his answer, and what Uddhava somehow intuited with his question.

Thank you for joining me on this little pilgrimage. in the next post in this series (it could appear anytime, so stay tuned!) we will discuss Krishna’s answer to Uddhava’s second question: What is self-control?

Peace

Un hommage à tous les ailés

Reflections on a Word

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Henry David Thoreau

Did you know that Thoreau, when he was staying at Waldon Pond would sometimes sit on the front steps of his cabin right after sunrise.

Often he would look up and discover that it was already  midday or even late afternoon; he’d spent those several hours in a reverie.

Being in a reverie is most often described as being a pleasant experience, just like a nice day-dream. It is also universally (at least in the context of my short Google searches) described as being ‘lost in thought’, as well as being a place of fantasy, a place in which fanciful and impractical ideas are born.

In other words, a reverie while being pleasant, does not seem to be looked upon as a useful, productive, or worthwhile experience.

I’ve been thinking about the word, reverie, and the state to which it refers for a couple of days now. In fact since I read the anecdote opening post in a truly wonderful and illuminating book called Thoreau’s Quest: Mysticism in the Life and Writings of Henry David Thoreau, by Paul and Anna Hourihan.

The outcome of this contemplation and the above-mentioned little bits of Googling, is that I don’t agree at all with the dictionaries when they tell us that reveries are almost useless and have little or no benefits.

Even the Hourihans dismiss the value of reveries when compared to the practice of formal meditation. Listen to what they say:

There is a difference between the two. Meditation means effort, concentration of the total mind. What Thoreau has experienced is reverie – passive, beautiful and enchanting, but not true meditation.

My reaction to this dismissal? Well, I say, what’s wrong with an experience that is passive (there might be a book in the idea that reveries might not be all that passive after all) beautiful and enchanting?

And on the other side? Why is it  seen as virtuous to be always making efforts and concentrating the total mind all the time? Speaking for me and I suspect several billion other people, I get tired, always trying, making effort, always concentrating and the rest.

I’m not saying at all that I’m not in favour of meditation. Indeed, I spend hours each day (in theory that is) in some kind of effortful, concentrated meditation. But, really, isn’t it nice now and again to just give up the effort, lose concentration, just for a bit? Just rest.

Of course when one’s mind wanders in reverie, fanciful ideas and thoughts will arise. Mind you it’s equally likely that some of those thoughts and ideas won’t be fanciful, but be helpful. And you know, I doubt there’s a meditator in the universe who would not report exactly the same thoughts and fancies come up despite all their meditatory efforts and concentration That’s just how our minds work.

The notion of being ‘lost in thought’ is interesting to look at too. I don’t think it’s quite the right way to refer to what happens in reveries. At least not completely.

Was Thoreau really lost in thought when he would suddenly realise that several hours had passed without him being aware?

Perhaps it’s more likely that at least a proportion of those hours were spent in a thought free state, just as in deep sleep when our mind is absent.And we all know how restful and satisfying deep, dreamless sleep can be. Maybe that’s why reveries are described as ‘pleasant’ experiences.

My teacher talks about how sometimes when we’re listening to a favourite piece of music, we can become ‘lost in the music’. We all know how that feels. He then asks us to consider, what is it exactly that ‘gets lost’?

Well, just as with deep sleep or when in a state of Samadhi or deep meditation, it is the mind that disappears – along with its self-idenifying ego sense. In other words, whoever we think we are goes missing or absent for a while.

When I’ve experienced that state when listening to music, I would describe it as losing track of time, or rather not being aware of time at all. Thoughts come and go but don’t often stay long, ‘just floating by like clouds’ as someone recently described it to me. And afterwards when I return to ‘normal’ I sometimes have a sense that for a time I and the music were one, no separation or judgements, non-different.

And so it is when ‘lost’ in a reverie: the ego disappears; thoughts come and go. What’s left is the space between thoughts – a bit like the silence that exists between notes in a musical composition.

Some say that it is this silence, this space when mind and ego are absent, is where the divine is to be found. It is said, by some, that it is in this space, this silence, one may experience God, or Absolute Reality.

So, no ego; no monkey mind jumping about; no ‘I’ to interfere with the state of silence, stillness, and peace. And quiet!

And if one removes the letter ‘I’ from the word reverie? We are left with revere. Perhaps those who tell us that the silence is God, those who say that the absence of thoughts, ego and so on, allows us to detect the Divine, are onto something. That silence, and the process by which it is realised, are to be revered.

Being ‘lost’ (the dictionary’s word not mine) in a reverie might just be the most useful and the most productive (not the world’s definition, but more in the sense of the actions that make for the betterment of Self) thing we can do when the mood, the moment, and the inclination strike.

As Promised: A Prayer of Praise and Gratitude to Trees

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At one point in my last post on Bhakti (if you missed it you can find it here) I mentioned that I hoped to soon publish a recently written prayer titled A Prayer of Praise and Gratitude to Trees.

Even as I typed those words in that previous post, I thought: ‘soon’? Why the delay? What’s wrong with now? So, without any further delay, here is our next post and in it I’m very glad to be sharing that prayer with you.

As my comment in that previous post explained, this prayer (and others too) is one more little step in my ongoing effort to cultivate a mood or feeling, and a practice, of Bhakti or loving devotion to the Divine.

If you’ve read that last post you will recall that I stressed my deeply held and heartfelt conviction that the Divine is everything. As I may have actually said: there is only the Divine; one, whole, partless and indivisible. Now, to knowingly repeat myself: The Divine is one without a second; that’s all there is.

This prayer to trees is an attempt to acknowledge that oneness of which each and every tree – just like you and me and all other beings – is a manifestation, each with its own unique name and form.

This prayer, though composed by this particular name and form, is in fact just one more expression of that oneness we all share. As such it is as equally yours as it is mine. As I said earlier, I am glad we are sharing this now.

A Prayer of Praise & Gratitude to Trees

Dear Aranyani

With this prayer we greet you. We offer you our praise, and our gratitude.

When we come into your presence, you remind us that in meeting and greeting you, we are in fact meeting and greeting God.

We bless you and we thank you for the shelter that you steadfastly provide to so many living beings. In so doing you support, protect, and nurture the continuance of life for all of us.

Your every exhalation is for so many other living beings the breath of life, of Prana – the life force itself.

You remind us as we witness your strength, your resilience, and your calm flowing with the winds of change that we too share that strength, resilience and the potential for calm flowing with those winds of change that are also constantly buffeting us.

Om Aranyani Namah

PS Who is Aranyani? She is a Hndu deity of the forests and all that dwell within the forests. Basically she is the Goddess of Trees and here is simply the name and form representing all trees.

Sacred Strings, Sacred Tree

Happiness, Freedom & Other Joys VS Anger, Depression & Other Sufferings

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Frustrated, depressed, annoyed, and even angry at times. All because I know for certain sure that it’s God’s will that I write more – as in more often, more volume, and more quality too. And I’ve vowed to do God’s will in all things to the best of my ability.

No, actually those extremely un-monklike emotional reactions are not because of this knowledge of the will of the Universe or my vow to obey; I have those unhappy emotions because of the other vow I’ve yet to mention: I have vowed to find ways to content myself with how the universe unfolds for my life, and for the world.

I’m not saying that I have promised to resign myself to ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ or whatever one might call it. No. And it’s a big no because while what happens in the material world is working out according to the laws of nature, it’s equally true that I am in that mix: I have my part to play in the universal scheme of things, just like we all do. It’s a matter of I do my bit, and the Universe (or God) does its bit.

And then it struck me. Blew my mind is more like it. All my frustration, depression, anger, and whatever, over not writing to my own desired level, is really nothing more than a raging against God’s will. Needless to say, this reaction is really quite a distance from obedience!

Another thought on the topic of God’s will – the laws of nature and the natural order of the Universe: By obvious definition those laws and order must (obviously again) apply to all things in what we call the Cosmos or Universe.

All material things, such as bodies, as well as non-material things like minds, emotions and the like. You name it; All there is is bound by the same set of natural laws.

So, speaking for myself alone, not being able to write to my expected or desired for level is only one – and quite a minor one it has to be said – of numerous areas in my life and the world that cause me frustration and all the rest, as I struggle to to be content with the will of the Universe.

Too big a topic, or should I say too many topics to get into here. In any case, shall we set aside that not so little aside for now?

So, where were we? Right: Raging against God’s will; resisting the ways in which the natural laws of the universe are working themselves out. Sounds terrible when you see it  writen down like that doesn’t it?

Anyway, it’s clear to me that the Universe , the will of God, is trying to say something to me, which sounds something like this:

‘Look you may very well want to write, you might even be desperate to get those words and ideas out of your head and onto the page, but that’s just not the way things are right now is it?

‘Of course the smooth running of the Universe involves you, and in a big big way too, but you are still just one element in what is really quite a complex, not to mention gigantic, system.’ Nature can put you in your place for sure sometimes.

‘In fact it might be,’ this spokesperson for the Universal order continued, ‘that the Universe is trying to get a none too subtle message across to you? Do you think that desperately clinging to some outcome you want or desire that strongly but can’t seem to get, is causing you pain? Of course it is. Anger, depression, all those sad and negative emotions, they are just not necessary.’

The Universe (in its manifestation as my discursive mind) can be very vocal sometimes, but I think I sort of get it.
Essentially what that Universal spokesperson is saying is that the order of the Universe is working out just as it’s supposed to. Actually it can’t do otherwise. I play my part (which according to the spokesperson is bigger than I imagine), and really that’s all there is to it.

In other words, If I’m not writing, then that is precisely what is supposed to be happening (or not happening) right now. And not only that, but because I am an active participant in the way the Universe looks and behaves right now, then it’s also pretty obvious that I already know – deep down somewhere – that it’s really alright. It’s all just as it’s meant to be.

Once again speaking just for myself, I find it quite tricky finding the balance between what part I am to play, and what’s the Universe’s bit, in controlling the direction my life takes or in affecting the conditions that impact me.

Perhaps the best way, indeed it might be the only way, to have a positive impact on my own happiness, peace, contentment, and having a calm mind, is to give up any desires for things that won’t contribute to my spiritual and personal growth or the wellbeing of other beings, while at the same time acting upon without attachment to the outcomes, those desires that seem to me to be for the good of all, including Self. 

Being attached – driven by compulsions or aversion – to the outcome of our desires, however, simply leads to more desires even when fulfilled.  And when they are not fullfilled, there is suffering due to clinging to those compulsions.

Bottom line? I am seriously attached to my desire to write more (as well as so many other things as I alluded to earlier), that not being able to do that right now is causing a lot of suffering. Enough of that I say! Oh, that balance thing: it’s about discernment isn’t it? Okay I get it, story for another day.

PS I’m so glad I got that all out of my head and onto the page. Thanks for listening friends.