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In meditation this morning as thoughts subsided and pure awareness moved to the forefront of my experience, this poem by Rumi came to mind:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
It is the silent awareness that we experience in deep meditation that is the field Rumi is talking about here. Between your thoughts… in the space between your breathes … lies this field. Here awareness is both empty and full.
Such a paradox: empty of thought, yet full with the ineffable presence of being. And in this beingness, in this silent field, we leave behind the thinking mind, with its positives and negatives, with its right and wrong and its good vs. bad. All polarity resolves as we come to rest in this still field of Unified Consciousness or Oneness.
Oneness is all there is, and in this shared experience, in its fullness and in its profundity, language becomes unnecessary and wholly inadequate.
Closing the eyes direct your meditations here. Form the intention to quiet the mind and lie down in this, Rumi’s grass. This field is everywhere the mind is not! Yes, find it in meditation, but also anywhere you can find a quiet moment. Discernible in nature, especially, the natural world subtly pulsates here in silent wonder.
At this critical moment in a world so filled with chaos, in a world so desperately needing peace, we can choose to spend time in Rumi’s field. We can choose to leave the polarized nature of the lower mind behind with its relentless searching thoughts never resolving.
Instead let the mind be still. Be the change you want to see. Spend time in Rumi’s field, where all inner and outer conflict is resolved and, instead of a world of strife, a world of possibilities appears.
This comment was made to me recently by someone who is feeling the intensity of these challenging times: “Sometimes it feels as though everything is just falling apart in the world and there is nothing to hold on to at all!
True, searching for something to hold onto in the external world of form, which by its very nature is in flux, is futile. So in chaotic times, and whenever you are feeling unstable, rather than looking outside of yourself for something to ground on, turn your attention inward. And find gold!
The mystical teachings from the East tell us that when we turn our attention inward into the subtle physical, or energy body, we can align our attention with a column of golden light that runs through the midline of the body from head to toe. Called the Shushumna, it is our center, the calm center in the eye of the storm of our external lives.
The Shushumna is the Light of Oneness, the luminous core within a world of duality and form that holds its opposites in equilibrium. When we align our attention here the either or mind quiets down we become centered and still, and we begin to feel the immensity of our divine eternal nature.
If there is action to be taken, that intuition and the impetus toward action comes from this still, quiet, alignment. Take this moment…
With the eyes open or closed, begin with some conscious breaths. Breathe in and out and bring your attention inward, feeling into your energy body. Begin to visualize or, with your psychic perception, see a column of golden/white light about three inches in circumference sitting just in front of the physical spine. Stay with it for a moment or two. Now, maintaining this awareness feel into a spot at the base of your spine at the perineum. Take a couple of slow conscious breathes in and out here. Then slowly follow the line of light and energy up the midline of the body to the top of your head at the crown. Breathe in and out through the top of the head a couple of times.
Now, once again, visualize the whole line of energy, like a fluorescent tube of light. Not confined to the body, it actually extends into the aura and beyond. Feel it. Relax into it. Merge with it. Know that you are home and that all is well. Stay as along as you wish, and return here anytime, but especially when feeling unstable and ungrounded.
The world is going through its paces, its growing pains, as it were. We can observe the turbulence from a grounded core place in the Shushumna. Then we serve the world and its evolution by simply being at peace, by radiating peace. By simply returning home to the Light of Oneness and our divine eternal nature.
I’m back from South Africa and a beautiful journey near the mouth of the gorgeous and dramatic Blyde River Canyon in the northeast corner of the country. The new header for my blog is a picture I took at dusk near the rim of the canyon on March 13. Africa – so far away, yet something familiar in me was awakened. My original incarnation in this current cycle of existence, perhaps? Merging with the vast savannah in the silence of nearby Kruger Park I came to know intimately what my teacher calls ‘African Dream Time’. Time stops and one knows implicitly – there is no time, just vast eternal Oneness. The area where I stayed at a botanical reserve at the foot of the sacred mountain of Modimolle, which means ‘place where God resides’, has a very special transcendental energy, allowing the mind to dissolve and one to float blissfully in a sea of expanded consciousness and timeless existence. The Mountain has a powerful way of calling me to attention by instantly aligning my awareness in the vertical axis of the core-light within, and I find that I am in It and It is in me! Read the rest of this entry »
My yoga class the other day was exquisite. There was a particular effortlessness to the practice. Arriving at each asana, I felt an increased physical expansion as each breath filled the body more completely. Instantly, the pose lit up. Time stopped and all efforting ceased. I was held, supported by the light in a kind suspended animation. Such joy! My practice became a prayer of gratitude to the Divine, for life, for love, for the beauty of existence!
Then, leaving the yoga studio and reentering the world from this newly expanded place, I noticed all my senses were heightened, and a profound silence enveloped me. My attention was drawn to the trees lining the city street, and to the breeze gently swaying their branches. I was captivated by the moment, feeling Eternity calling me – calling me home to Self, to Oneness, to my divine nature.
You too have probably had glimpses of this Oneness, this peace, especially in nature. It was natural that my awareness was called to the wind and the trees when I left the yoga studio the other day. Nature pulses with this divine light. In truth, we all do, but in nature form is pure and pristine unencumbered by the veils that mask this radiance in us. Outside the buzz and chaotic energy of the city, we are drawn to nature and open spaces because we find solace there, and healing and rejuvenation – because in it we are connected to this Oneness that is our very nature.
Think of that remote spot you love to go to in the mountains or the forest. Ah, fresh air at last! You breath in deeply, relaxing into the scene. The mind becomes quiet and, within the stillness, Divine Presence expresses itself through the forms of the world: The wind’s exhale delicately wafts through the trees, and the leaves respond in a ripple of delight – so effortlessly, so inevitably. So lovely! You can appreciate the experience because a part of you recognizes this Presence. You resonate with it because it is in you. It is you! Breathing in deeply once again, you are drawn more completely into present moment. You relax, perhaps laying back on some grass, and your attention is called upward to powder blue sky, and within this expanse – billowy white cumulus clouds, so soft, so yin – gently moving – so effortlessly, so inevitably. You are entranced by this shape shifting visual delight! Heart feels full as it opens to the light that is within and that is without. This light is everywhere. It is all there is – light, Divine Presence, the Oneness that we are.
A student recently asked me what she could do about feelings of apathy, meaninglessness and desolation.
These heavy, dense emotions feel terrible and our first instinct is to run away from them – to not feel them. We may do this by distracting ourselves, by getting really busy or, perhaps, by self-medicating in some way. This is a mistake. By ignoring our feelings we actually allow them to dig a deeper groove in our psyche and in the body. In truth all emotions exist as a field of energy – an energy vibration held in the subtle body and the physical body and activated by thought. If we avoid feeling our emotions, the disturbance will eventually manifest in the physical, as a physical imbalance and an ailment of some kind. The solution is the willingness to witness any negative emotion that arises as a sensation in the body – simply as a vibratory field of energy. What typically happens, though, is that the mind intervenes. The ego/mind wants to tell a story about the source of the pain – to blame some one, or to blame some external event for causing the pain, or to feel sorry for itself. But this only exacerbates the suffering. With the willingness to experience our emotions directly and to expose them to the light of Truth, they will leave.
Our pure awareness is the light of the divine, and when we bring this awareness and attention directly to bear on the source of our discomfort in the body, this light acts like a laser beam, burning through the disturbance to reveal what is always there – the ground of being – vast eternal Oneness – and the source of our true peace.
To begin this exploration find a comfortable meditative position, or alternatively, lie on the floor on your back, arms resting comfortably at your sides, palms up, legs slightly apart with your feet relaxed and resting outwards. In yoga, this is the classic savasana pose. Take some deep relaxing breaths and bring your attention into your body. Notice any physical sensations. See if you can find the emotional pain you are feeling in the body. There is a corrolation. It can be sensed as a knot of coiled energy, a tingling sensation, or a churning tumultuous feeling, or perhaps an area of intense heat or pressure. Allow your awareness to meet the sensation directly. Feel. Notice if your mind wants to co-opt the process by telling a story about it, and let this go. Come back to sensation. Stay with it. It may want to move or morph into a different shape, or take on a different tonality. Track it as it moves or changes. Focus your lens of pure awareness directly on the source of your discomfort. Allow it to burn away.
You will soon find that which seemed to have so much substance, to be nothing at all! Take some deep relaxing breaths and enjoy this new found spaciousness. It is this spaciousness that is your true nature, and the field within which all emotions pass.
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