Tag Archives: Children of God

One, Without a Second, is All There Is

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Right at the front of my Bhagavad Gita (the only book aside from the notebook I’m writing this in, that I personally own), I have recorded and inserted sayings and various words , that are important to me. Among those things is a statement I first heard many many years ago, that is common among the First Nations’ peoples of this country:

I [We] stand always on sacred ground and beneath sacred skies.


It is not an affirmation of ownership or possession. It is, instead, an affirmation of belonging to the land, to nature. It is a prayer of thanks, and it is a declaration of the knowledge of unity with the rest of the natural world, that is the hallmark and foundation for Indigenous cultures throughout the world and through time.

I’ve valued – treasured – this sentiment for a very long time – probably from even before I first heard it, which was so long ago as to be lost to memory. Perhaps I always knew it because I’ve somehow always thought this idea was a fundamental truth concerning my existence as a being living on this planet.

Well, now I have heard another statement that for me makes a perfect compliment for this one. The other day, during a lecture, my teacher mentioned that in his student days a fellow student said:

Wherever you are, you are walking through Ishwara

(Ishwara being her preferred name for the divine – for all that is.)

There is a feeling or sense of ‘belonging’, of awe and wonder when we attempt to immerse ourselves in what we term the natural world.

Once again I immediately felt the bell of Truth ringing clearly through this statement. Yes, I thought, everything is divine – including our own selves – so of course it follows that wherever we go, whatever we do, we are always in the divine.

You’ve probably read a number of times me quoting my teacher quoting his teacher:

It’s not that there is only one God, there is only God.
          Swami Dayananda Saraswati

Emphasis very much on only. Meaning of course, that it’s not that God is within us, or that we are within God; we are not surrounded by God; and it’s not that God ‘sits in our hearts’. The reality (for my teacher’s teacher) was that all that is, everywhere, everything, every thought, every word and deed, everything there is, is the divine.

Another way to describe the divine or God, that appeals to me is that Ishwara (also my own preferred name for the Divine) is in reality the natural order of the universe as dictated by the laws of nature. Those laws of nature, the rules that govern how the universe works, are also Ishwara, as are all that is manifest or in existence  as a consequence of the workings of those laws.

In other words, the Divine is the sum total of what some would call the entirety of creation.***

For the hermits a sacred site. Part of a grove we named The Sentinels. A place of experience of unity and oneness of creation

For me this an enormously comforting and reassuring concept. Of course, for me at least, it is also an extremely difficult one to wrap my head around. But here’s a small summary of what I think I’ve grasped so far.

Ishwara – the Divine – is all there is; everything. Also divine is the natural order of the Universe as governed by the laws of nature. These laws are neither good or bad – there is no duality. They are neutral.

You and I, as one more entity among who knows how many others, act as we do and are subject to the laws of nature, just like everything else. We can’t change or influence those laws; we can only live our lives as they unfold.

To quote from Desiderata: No doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should

And, well, then things just work out as they do. While we can’t change the laws of nature, or bend the universe to always suit our liking, it is also true to say that every action we take, every thought we think, every word we utter, even our very presence as a living being in our time and place, do indeed contribute to ‘how things work out’. Another way of saying this is to say, we do our bit, and the universe does its bit and what happens, well, happens.

For me, this is not at all as simple or as straightforward as it sounds. Naturally  we see ourselves as individual selves, as entities on our own. After all, to state the obvious, we live and operate in a material (dualistic) world. So automatically we see ourselves as individuals living in, but always separate from all the other individual entities, as well as being disconnected from the world itself.

It is part of human nature (for the most part) to long for connection; there is so often a drive within us pushing us to create family, enter relationships, feel we belong to a community or communities, and for many but not all, there is the almost instinctive urge to seek connection with the rest of nature.

Many forms, One reality

We often think of these longings as goals to achieve, as something outside of ourselves to attain, to reach for. Consequently, so very often we tend to focus our attention outwards, towards other people, or material things.

But, instead, all these inclinations, desires and longings are simply our Self (note the capital?) endeavoring to open itself to discovering (or rediscovering?) that which already exists: our oneness with, and our non-separation, and non-difference from, The All That Is.

Peace and Love from Paul the Hermit

FOOTNOTE

***Just a few thoughts about naming, or giving labels to the Universe and its laws.  Obviously it’s a personal choice for each of us what we choose to call that creation. Then, on the other hand, we don’t have to call it anything at all. For me personally it is very difficult, even near impossible to not name it. By naming the creation, I don’t think I am attributing the manifestation of the Universe to some distant entity living in some heavenly abode (as my teacher likes to say). Rather I am acknowledging the intelligence  and order, beauty, complexity of all that is and how it all works, as its own reality. At the same time, I am learning to understand that I as my true nature am not separate from the rest of creation, and I feel the need to have a name towards which I am able to focus my thanks and my reverence.

The Road Rises Up:  A poem about journeying (Reshared with a note added)

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It’s a funny thing, but as soon as I start thinking about resharing older (let’s call them prior posts instead) all sorts of posts come up begging to be the next in line to be shared again.

Anyway, I’d sat down to write something on a quote I really like:

Forget all that and hit the road into exile.

FROM A LONG LOST DEEPLY BURIED NOTE-TAKING APP ON MY TABLET

But nothing was coming. Then suddenly I remembered: I’d already written (sort of, kind of, in a manner of speaking) about this topic, if not this particular quote.

Looking up the post, well it did its thing and said very clearly and in no uncertain terms, Post me!

So, here it is dear friends. I will let it speak for itself

Today I’d like to share a poem with you. I wrote it exactly a year ago, but it’s about a day many many years ago. At other places on this site I’ve mentioned that cliched but for me ever so real question: Am I running away from something or am I running towards something?

In one of those other places I joke about my answer: ‘Neither. I’m just a journey person’. Well, this poem began life as a story of the day I first met Jesus freaks as I hitchhiked on just one more random excursion.

Then it becomes at the same time a piece about running, or journeying towards. And, there’s more: it then speaks about the journey as the point of the journey; the movement is the thing

But the thing morphed into a rap about journey beginnings, or at least in the sense of my ongoing attempted, and until a lot of years later, futile escapes from the madness of family and circumstance. That’s the running away bit.

You see, there was something holy felt then, as now, about those seemingly random hitching trips (not that I would dream of hitching in these times). Somehow I knew the Road was the escape route from the growing madness and horror.

Of course I was only able to partially articulate this at that time, but I remember even at 17 (no, it was a year earlier when I’d made my first attempt. I’d forgotten about that) feeling a sort of specialness about the covering of new (for me) ground, the movement, then the arrival at new (for me) places, new towns and cities.

Much of this pilgrimming (for that is what it was) was done in solitude – except for interactions with drivers of course (one of whom was on the day in question one of the said Jesus Freaks) and other necessary people along the way.

I felt a sense of belonging when on the Road; a kind of being in place and in sync. A sense of belonging that I kept fucking up as I let the trickster ego with its taunting messages of fear, loneliness, greed for things and status, and the rest, take control of me and lead me on twisting and tricky roads back to madness.

And now, these 50 years later, I survey the damage done, the cost to self and others. Especially others. No use of course, to look back with wishful thoughts of what if things had been done differently, what if other choices had been made. Such is not truth, not real. Well, none of it’s real anyway is it? Samsara is all it is –  it’s all a sea of madness and illusion isn’t it?

Anyway, here is the poem. May it speak to you.
Peace

The Road Rises Up

I woke up that morning marooned in Albion
in a village of warriors, on a street, in a house,
going mad in a nest of madness
on an island of madness, in a sea of madness.
Escape, refuge, safety – waking thoughts.
Waking dreams. Looking for a way out.

The Road. The Road rose up in my mind.
The Road will save me. Not the shrink
the patriarch screamed I needed to see.
The Road was waiting; I found it waiting for me.
And my thumb in silent salutation and prayer
held aloft in supplication as I trudged on that seemingly straight but trickster road.

Welcome to the pilgrims’ way, the Road greeted me
as I trod ever more lightly
and Babylon’s chariots hurtled past me bound for far nowheres.
Or maybe somewheres.
All in the fast lanes and howling deceptively
of invitations and rejections, attractions and aversions.
Then – in time – an invitation proffered and accepted.
This pilgrim was on his way.

The Road Rises Up:  A poem about journeying

Posted on by
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Today I’d like to share a poem with you. I wrote it exactly a year ago, but it’s about a day many many years ago. At other places on this site I’ve mentioned that cliched but for me ever so real question: Am I running away from something or am I running towards something?

In one of those other places I joke about my answer: ‘Neither. I’m just a journey person’. Well, this poem began life as a story of the day I first met Jesus freaks as I hitchhiked on just one more random excursion.

Then it becomes at the same time a piece about running, or journeying towards. And, there’s more: it then speaks about the journey as the point of the journey; the movement is the thing

But the thing morphed into a rap about journey beginnings, or at least in the sense of my ongoing attempted, and until a lot of years later, futile escapes from the madness of family and circumstance. That’s the running away bit.

You see, there was something holy felt then, as now, about those seemingly random hitching trips (not that I would dream of hitching in these times). Somehow I knew the Road was the escape route from the growing madness and horror.

Of course I was only able to partially articulate this at that time, but I remember even at 17 (no, it was a year earlier when I’d made my first attempt. I’d forgotten about that) feeling a sort of specialness about the covering of new (for me) ground, the movement, then the arrival at new (for me) places, new towns and cities.

Much of this pilgrimming (for that is what it was) was done in solitude – except for interactions with drivers of course (one of whom was on the day in question one of the said Jesus Freaks) and other necessary people along the way.

I felt a sense of belonging when on the Road; a kind of being in place and in sync. A sense of belonging that I kept fucking up as I let the trickster ego with its taunting messages of fear, loneliness, greed for things and status, and the rest, take control of me and lead me on twisting and tricky roads back to madness.

And now, these 50 years later, I survey the damage done, the cost to self and others. Especially others. No use of course, to look back with wishful thoughts of what if things had been done differently, what if other choices had been made. Such is not truth, not real. Well, none of it’s real anyway is it? Samsara is all it is –  it’s all a sea of madness and illusion isn’t it?

Anyway, here is the poem. May it speak to you.
Peace

The Road Rises Up

I woke up that morning marooned in Albion
in a village of warriors, on a street, in a house,
going mad in a nest of madness
on an island of madness, in a sea of madness.
Escape, refuge, safety – waking thoughts.
Waking dreams. Looking for a way out.

The Road. The Road rose up in my mind.
The Road will save me. Not the shrink
the patriarch screamed I needed to see.
The Road was waiting; I found it waiting for me.
And my thumb in silent salutation and prayer
held aloft in supplication as I trudged on that seemingly straight but trickster road.

Welcome to the pilgrims’ way, the Road greeted me
as I trod ever more lightly
and Babylon’s chariots hurtled past me bound for far nowheres.
Or maybe somewheres.
All in the fast lanes and howling deceptively
of invitations and rejections, attractions and aversions.
Then – in time – an invitation proffered and accepted.
This pilgrim was on his way.