Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Musings on one Hermit's life & world

A Love Song to a Love Song

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Deceptively simple is how I’d thought to describe the lyrics of a love song by John Lennon I heard again recently for the first time in years.

But, no I thought straight away, that’s not right. The message of the song is simple, and the lyrics convey that message to us just as simply.

Of course why the song is so powerful – and personally significant to me and so many others – is that, while the message may be simple, the ramifications of really hearing the lyrics, really digging the words and trying to put them into action, are far from simple or limited and have few if any boundaries of any kind.

The one word title of the song I’m talking about says it all: Love. Lennon included Love on his first solo album with the Plastic Ono Band, which was released in 1970. So not actually a solo album, but you know what I mean.

The original purpose of this post was to share with you a poem I wrote in response to reconnecting with this masterpiece.

While I will still be sharing that poem, I thought I would first let you see the lyrics of Love put together through my own listenings to the song itself. No copyright breach is intended here. I only print the lyrics for illustration purposes, and besides, if you can’t share a song called Love, by John Lennon, what can you share?

If before or after reading the lyrics you prefer to actually listen to the song being sung by John, then just head here for a great early version.

Love is real, real is love.
Love is feeling, feeling love.
Love is wanting to be loved.

Love is touch, touch is love.
Love is reaching, reaching love.
Love is asking to be loved.

Love is you,
You and me.
Love is knowing
We can be.

Love is free, free is love,
Love is living, living love.
Love is needing to be loved.

You see? Simple lyrics, simple melody, but the message! It’s all about the message. Or is it an invocation? A love mantra?

Mind you, the song is presented in such a light-hearted and gentle soft manner, that it might be easy for some to dismisss the message as being merely wishful or fluffy thinking. But, there really isn’t anything fluffy about love is there?

Now, to my response. Well one response among many I should say. I offer this poetic effort in humility and gratitude – indeed, in and with love.

‘Cos as John wrote in another great anthem:

All you need is love

Peace from Paul the Hermit

JOHN WROTE A LOVE SONG

John was a singer and a writer of songs.
John was a friend of mine – yet never known personally.
Yet known by me all my life.
A fab friend for everyone.

John wrote songs, songs he sang,
lyrics given life by voices
very few heard.
It was hysterical.

He wrote a love song, a song I heard and loved.
In fact, a whole lot of love songs he wrote.
One verse, in that one song, caught my ear, snatched at my heart.

This is the verse,
    the stanza I love:
       Love is you
       You and me
       Love is knowing
       We can be.

No sickly, sweet sentiment this.
Not like some plastic bobble-head
lurking in some grubby rear window.
No, as the song he wrote says:
Love is real.

Love not for the sake of getting it right all the time;
Love not for the sake of always looking like the good guy;
Love not for the sake of a distant and cold devotion;
But love,
Love for you alone.

What? It’s the Next Question

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

I’m rewriting this post after initially making it another two for one thing. One of those two questions had been: ‘What is prayer?’. As in what form can and does prayer take, my prayer that is.

Then I realised that all the thoughts, all the contemplations and reflections I came up with in answer, belonged more correctly in the How question which will be coming in due course.

Which means, that in this post we will be looking at just the one question, which also is only about my own personal prayer life.

What do I pray for?

As it happens, I have already spent a little time on this question in the Why do I pray? post back in November. I think it would be a good start to begin this post with a quote from that one:

‘So,’ you might ask, ‘you pray without any ulterior motive at all? You don’t pray to get things? You don’t pray for healing for others or yourself? You don’t pray for peace and happiness for the world or for yourself? None of these things?’
These are good, valid questions. And the short answer is yes, of course I do. I do pray for healing for others and myself; I do pray for communal and personal peace. As for happiness, well who doesn’t pray in one way or another for a just a little happiness now and again?
However, I do draw the line at praying for material things, like money and material objects to possess, none of those kind of things. I believe I don’t pray for such things. I think so anyway.

Now, I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that those two last little sentences are broadcasting a very clear message: Obviously there is some uncertainty in my thoughts about what I actually in fact do pray for.

Somewhere, sometime, recently I wrote to the effect of that there is nothing to pray for, and that there is nobody to do the praying. This, of course is not a notion we can really get to grips with while living in a material body in a material Universe.

It’s nore for those dwelling in some transcendental realm where everything that exists has ceased to exist, and all that remains is pure consciousness.

So, obviously while we continue our existence as embodied beings, living in a material universe, there is much to pray for and there are many of us who do pray. Speaking only for myself personally, I know I could pray more, better, and deeper. As I’ve mentioned many times, my aspiration is to make my entire life – physical, mental, spiritual, – a prayer.

Okay, that’s all very good and fine, but I still haven’t answered the question: What do I pray for?

Well, as I mention in the quoted passages above, I pray for healing and peace for other people, the world, and for myself. I pray for happiness, health, and freedom from suffering for all beings.

But it’s not that I’m directing my prayer to some being up there in some heavenly realm who sits arbitrarily dispensing favours or denying them, and who acts according to the quality and quantity of prayers sent their way.

No, it’s more about, as I talk about in Who do I pray to? the post before this one, directing my attention, thoughts, actions and everything else, to the symbols that represent for me the natural flow of the laws and order of the Universe. Why?

Seeking alignment, I think that’s the best answer. By praying I am seeking to align myself, to put myself in sync with those natural laws, with the flow of that natural order.

Referring to the quote above, the peace and healing I pray for are like affirmations of my desire for that alignment, and that the entirety of Self itself be in alignment. That Self I speak of is of course all that exists in the Universe.

It’s similar when talking about praying for material ‘things’ while remembering too, that healing and peace are also in fact ‘things’ of the material world. Perhaps the best way to put it is to say that it is not the ‘things’ themselves that I pray for. With the risk of sounding like i’m repeating myself, it is correct alignment with all material existence that I am praying for.

Actually, it is more than that now I think about it. My prayer – and my life – is actually about my seeking to properly and fully realise that (to quote the glorious Desiderata:

No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should

We suffer when we label that unfoldig or a person, a thing or event or whatever as good or bad, desirable or undesirable; when we think there is a them and there is a me or an us always separated; when we are compelled to gather possessions and yet still think we never have enough. These are the dualities of material nature.

My prayer is to realise, not just know in my mind, but realise in my heart, that there are no dualities. There is only … Ummm. Well, perhaps that’s it: There is. Only. Nothing else. Only. Is.

May all beings come to know their Isness.

Who? Just One of Many Questions

Posted on February 2, 2025 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

In November last year I published a post on this blog that sought to answer the question, Why do I pray?
In that post I said that this question is one of the big ‘Who am I’, Self-Enquiry questions.

I also claimed in that post that it was (is) a core aspiration of mine that I make prayer a ‘whole of life activity’. To quote me from that post:

You see, I want to pray, and make my whole life a prayer. A prayer of praise and devotion; a prayer of gratitude and loving; and a prayer of service to all beings .

Anyway, moving along to today’s post.

That question, why do I pray, is one I ask myself quite often. It’s not a one time enquiry you can tick off and move on from. The contemplation of why pray is an ongoing and evolving thing.

A couple of days ago, as I once again reflected on this particular question, it occured to me that perhaps it wasn’t the only one I needed to be asking myself if I am to think about my prayer life in any depth. Actually, the same could be said for pretty much anything one is trying to find answers to.

Indeed, many writers – particularly story tellers and journalists – will be aware of the series of questions often used to get to the truth of something:

Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?

Commonly refered to as the ‘The Five W Questions’ (although there is that H in the mix leading to some calling them the WH Questions), these questions asked correctly and thoughtfully, will help to ensure a comprehensive and complete answer to any enquiry.

The next thought popping in suggested that it might be a great idea to apply the W Questions (including the H) to me and my prayer life.

At first I thought it seemed like a neat challenge, a kind of intellectual exercise that would be interesting. Then, though, after thinking about it some more, I realised that contrary to being just some mental challenge, asking myself these questions in relation to my prayer life, might actually be essential.

Especially if I am to some day reach fulfillment of my aspiration to make of my whole life a prayer. It’s the only way, I reasoned, that I would be able to get complete picture of the state of my prayer life.

Of course I have to wonder if it is indeed possible to ever get a ‘complete picture’ of a phenomenon such as an individual’s prayer life. Still, let’s just plunge in, see where it goes, what happens, how it works.

Who

There are actually two ‘who’ questions that I’d like to try to answer, both essential to our enquiry:

Who is it that’s praying? And Who do I pray to?

The answer to the first question is obvious: it’s me doing the praying. But, which me exactly? Not the me who is the true Self, the Absolute Reality. The reason why will become clear as we go along.

No, the me doing the praying is what we might call the body mind complex, the me that lives in the material world as a material being. The impulse to pray, what to pray, who to pray to and all the rest arises in the mind.

Mind you, I along with so many others I’m sure, like to say that I pray with and from my heart, my spiritual heart. But then I do also know that emotions originate as thoughts in the mind. Of course that does not lessen the significance of such emotions and the prayers, love, or devotion that follows.

Now, who do I pray to? I know it’s going to sound a bit odd, flippant and even silly, but as I think about it, I realise that I do in fact pray to everyone and to everything.

Which is to say, my prayers are directed to that invisible ‘something’ that pervades and permeates – and actually is – everything that exists. You could say that I pray to existence itself. There is nothing or nobody else.

Of course it’s not exactly an easy thing to get a handle on praying to ‘everything and everybody’. I mean, where does one direct their attention? Who or what does one address or speak to? The answer is a lot more straightforward than you might think at first.

Because my prayers are to that amorphous ‘everything and everybody’ it’s quite easy to select one or more resonating and meaningful somethings or somebodys as the objects of my prayer.

There are many spiritual or religious traditions in the world, all with their preferred names and forms of the Divine (or Existence as I named it earlier). Each of these manifestations of the Divine has its own characteristics, their own place in the Universe. They each play their own roles in the cosmic order.

As such there are more or less an infinite number of choices for me to have as foci for my prayer life. I will try to share with you a few of my personal pantheon.

Om: The Essence of Brahman, Absolute Reality

The Existence I’ve mentioned a couple of times is named by some Brahman, the Ultimate Reality, the everything and everybody that I was talking about.

So, I might sometimes pray to Brahman. Mainly it’s an aspirational prayer as I seek to realise fully my already existent oneness with the Ultimate Reality.

Then there is Ishvara, which is probably closer to what most would recognise as God – a personal supreme being, Or, in some traditions Ishvara simply refers to the one or more deities that an individual chooses as objects of her or his devotion.

Centre of Attention on the Hermitage temple alter

Also included in my personal pantheon, are the Divine Mother, Kirishna, Ganesha, Lord Jesus, The Buddha, Sarasvati, as well as other teachers and saints from many traditions who pop in and out of my prayers, seemingly at random.

My prayers are of praise and/or gratitude to the teacher, deity or saint who seems to me at that moment to be most linked to my current circumstances and thoughts.

All of this I call prayer. To God. Or Brahman or Ishvara. Or very often, simply My Lord,

When You Say It All in a Text Message

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

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?

Posted on December 1, 2024 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

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.

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.

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

Posted on October 12, 2024 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

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

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

‘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.

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

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

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.

On a Pilgrim’s Way

Posted on September 29, 2024 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

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

Posted on September 27, 2024 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

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.

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