Friday, November 26, 2004

Blame Bliss


Theologues At the Edge
Originally uploaded by Anantya.

And there it was.

In an instant.

Like a 10,000 watt satori -SMACK- upside the wandering mind!

Crystal clear knowing, an oasis to the thirsty heart: The One is at play as "the many". The Many, no less deserving of honorific caps, are nothing but the One. Any problem I, or anyone, may be having with any part of this thruth is simply the dramatic tension of this Divine 'Leela' (Sanskrit for cosmic play) by design. Blame God for The All. Blame Bliss for the madness of The Many.

***explanation warning: Attempts to transduce/translate moments of deep and highly personal insight are almost always doomed. Attempting this anyway is simply a matter a kind-spirited goodwill, if not some invitation to some strange kind of brain-sport. Unless that kind of thing feels fun for you, don't bother reading on! ***

Obviously not the first time I have attempted to digest the welcome intrusion of this brand of insight, but this time it rang my bell with much more illuminating detail (same bamboo stick, harder -WACK-?). This time it struck me with much more applicability to the specific ways in which I tend to slip into struggle-mind, resistance and despair. It penetrated to the core of my reactions to so-called "modern" life and the nightmare of current affairs. It attacked the double-bind my idealism knots me up into, namely the persistence of seemingly unnecessary suffering in light of the longing (need) for peace, harmony, utopian co-existence, etc.

*** author's sidebar: Damn! This starts getting too didactic, too wordy, contrived, and defended. It was simply so: a gift of insight that reverberated in the body as real relief, a let-go at the knot in the solar-plexus, a resurgence of warm enlivening 'YES'-energy at the heart. Do I betray the purity and power of this wisdom-gift by trying to share it by efforting to successfully language it for you? Yet, if we don't try to share our deepest insights, where do we then meet each other? In silence sure, but that's a lonely place that so few of us know the pleasures of. We starve, trolling on the safe, dead surfaces of each other's confusing self-presentation, but we struggle too to really "get" the gist of each other at depth.***

The (or, really, any) "problem" is not with The One but rather with being awash in/as any one thing, part or portion of its many fractured subsets out here in planetary cosmic space. The "Many" then are merely the dynamic tension, or "play", of those portions (people, places, substances, energies, etc.) of The One still momentum-ed towards greater separation (all adventure or drama made possible by the separate-self-sense identity), polarized against (like the electric passion of love or the terrified nausea of war) or in dynamic cosmic dance with the other portions of The One which, having exhausted their karmic momentum and divisive trajectory, now having rounded the apex of Great Return and helplessly enduring the egoic vertigo (and sacrificial freefall) back into the ecstatic oneness with The One.

What of this bliss then? Well, all actions or the impulse towards (experience of, or union with) any object, experience or other is, regardless of its perceived or labeled "goodness" or "evil" within the subjective theater of conditional (human) existence and judgment, is none other than the expression of union-gravity (or the very real physics, or motion, of all merely temporary or separate "smithereened" selves or somethings towards RE-union with their source). All desire (no matter how lofty or craven) is ultimately, seen in this light, nothing but the desire for experience of and absorption back into bliss (or the state of non-separateness, release, peace, dissolution), regardless of the specific strategies or styles of hopeful any separate-self may exploit dramatizing the hypnotic logic of its own doomed seeking.

The knowing of this all necessitates no change, makes no difference (as the Play, or Leela, is, in all of its both gorgeous and horrific scenery, as perfect as The One who is forever at Play AS it all). Afterall, for the One, AS THE Very One, there is no "problem" (or other) even while for the One, as the unilluminated shards of now separate-selves hurdling their helpless way through the karma's house-of-mirrors, there is only problem(s) (or the seeking for Bliss, relief, union wherein only the bitter and aggravated frustration of empty reflections can be found).

Intimacy with, or submission to, the Mystery is not some 'better' or superior vantage point from which to solve or resolve anything about the Mystery. For true mysteries, especially the Very Wonder of Being Itself, are not problems to be solved but experiences to be lived, right? No? Tell me then, which is the 'better' place from which to experience a rollercoaster: a bench on the ground below it or the padded and sweat-soaked seat upon it? Just depends on which Divine momentum is driving your becoming in any one moment: out and into the adventure of being some "i" some"where", or the pull of the return Home back to One.

"So what?", you ask?
(a fair question, for sure)

"Blame Bliss" was/is for me like a special cosmic skeleton key for decoding the otherwise indecipherable motives for what appears here as so much unnecessary destructiveness, disease and suffering. What this insight makes available for me is the remembrance and understanding that EVERYthing here is always ALREADY only a temporary and unnecessary reflection of the One by who's crazy grace (or merciless adventure lust) all beings and experience are given to arise, persist for a time and then disappear back into. Any resistance, revulsion, rage or heartbreak I may feel about this Leela is at the same time both perfectly justified and yet paradoxically unnecessary. Remembering and enjoying this knowing then is, for me anyway, a profoundly liberating, relaxing and sane-making insight.

The real human value of this re-cognition, this simple truth around which all my mad rambling here so earnestly chases its own tail, is in how this understanding can (DOES, for me) utterly reframe or even physiologically return (or forward-escape) one into the bliss of peaceful submission as, gratitude for, and humorous devotion to the wherever/however/whoever one seems to be appearing as now, and now.........................and now.



***Whew! Sure, hope I wont feel the need to do THAT again soon ;)) ***

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Grace


Grace
Originally uploaded by Anantya.

Every fiber of my being aches to reach you, wherever you are now, with this ecstatic teary overwhelm that is my gratitude for you dear grandma.

You have been so many things to me...teacher, nurturer, confidant, play pal, guide, inspiration,.... and proof. You are the proof that life is best lived as service to others and love of God.

You are one of the most selfless humans I have ever known.

Even in your last hours you hung on till we could all come and laugh and cry and wonder with you at the Mystery of it all. Only you and your deeply peaceful fulfilled life could empower us to do the impossible,....to let you go.

For me you are forever and everywhere alive, now as Love Itself. Knowing that the very blood flowing in my veins is also yours calls me beyond all self-doubt to walk towards the bright new day and life your passing this morning ushered in for us all.

I can't be consoled. I'm going to miss you forever.
Thank you for this hole in my heart and life through which the One we both worship just keeps pouring on in.

Grandma, I love you so.