SO SATISFIED
A Meditation
With actions and thoughts I’ve tried to push and pull and now things look impossible. I place myself in the hands of higher Wisdom and let It reveal the way for me to take. *
*These meditations throughout the book are examples of spontaneous inquiry.
The Treasures or the King
(Choose you this day whom ye will serve.)
The King wanted to create a greater love. So he built a magic maze around the palace. When people explored the maze, they came across treasures on the paths, the farther they went the more breathtaking the finds. Everyone became enthralled by some candy, gem, potion, icon, or wand they picked up, which became very weighty as they continued. So distracted they forgot the King, and convincing themselves that this was the prize they had longed for, they returned home greatly pleased.
Finally a few folks realized that these weren’t the goal, but gifts leading along the path. So this handful left everything behind and walked on all the way into the very presence of the King. Where the real treasure was, there was their heart. And when the King alone was sought, he was revealed everywhere, in every present, for everyone.
(Has evolved from an old Sufi story)
Desirelessness is a divine principle. We Buddhists place it on the Middle Path, a paradox scalpel cleaving (slicing, welding) any contending views. We redeem the pairs of hedonism or asceticism, of cravings and fantasies or aversion and denial, of self-aggrandizing or belittling.
How do we redeem and reconcile? The Buddha says about dualities, “It’s not this; it’s not that; it isn’t neither this nor that; it isn’t both this and that.” Why isn’t it both this and that? Because opposites are synthesized at a new different level. For instance: Good and bad are both aids to awakening; this life and the afterlife are both the Life Divine; this dreamworld and the real world are both visions. We’re a process that turns joy and suffering, good and bad into greater love.
We can already see how the different principles we’re studying are facets of the same diamond, different shades of meaning of the one living Truth. I Am always Being, only I appear As this universe of Consciousness, what is there to desire outside of Me?
We neither pursue nor flee. We click back into focus, we see what Is Being enter into form. What can I desire when I already Am it all.
Realizing God in our meditation, we stop moving and are centered, then are moved by the divine hand, and no more maze for now. We then can tune in to the wonderful gifts, holy love forever expressing As fulfilling forms. We only desire the One, we desire to receive the One and we desire to impart as It imparts. We receive to impart, and then the flow releases, freely only can it flow. The rhythm of that flow is the deep wave of life, portrayed in breathing, walking, the course of the sun, acting through the pantomimes of the world, sustaining our growing souls.
There is nothing but the One, so these gifts themselves are God. Being emanations of the Invisible, to try to gain them directly puts things backwards, trying to hold the Beloved’s image in a mirror. We learn to wholeheartedly love the action and substance, and so to be non-attached to Its appearances. With our closest dear ones, in quietness and in confidence we loose them and let them orbit free even as we pull together.
I am already Self-complete. And so when we drop the dream of separation from anything, it will be known as good, godly, revealing what already Is in our Sacred Relationship within Oneness. In this awareness, we all enter the Renewed World.
Taking no anxious thought for food or clothes, seek first Really Being With You. Then the added things will express this in apt metaphors, behaving perfectly. (As we’ll see, when things keel over, we’re invaluably learning.)
Our unquenchable thirst, that can never be satisfied with finite rewards: Whenever we drink of the Living Waters that continuously lave us, now do our attachments drop away from anything this Love projects, now we can fully forgive and adore those very creations, the beings dancing close to us who are God.
So we rejoice and exhilarate with every good thing that comes by, and we praise the Cornucopia from Whom all blessings spiral, while we stay aware that these endless metaphors and visions are the gowns and cameos of Beyond-form ever imparting Itself, the “effects” emanating from the “Cause,” the laden cart behind the horse.
Kissing “the joy as it flies”: Nothing can be stored up in a vault, but everything that ever sprang up blooms freshly in the spirit.
We seek neither pictures without the Artist, nor God without expression. This earthly life is the growing edge of God. When we go deep within ourselves, we join the whole world.
So we stop kicking against the pricks, pushing the river, throwing monkeywrenches into the gearbox.
In meditation we are aware that we already have it all, that I Am it all. We rest back beholding Infinity gloriously unfolding. We float in the sluicing water of life for the joy of it, dueting with the passing scenery.
And when we let God be, let Being become, then sooner or later the blessed outer fruitage will reveal itself to us.
The Fount of life is now being the infinite source of all we could imagine. When our awareness is brought nearer to the Presence, the only happiness and substance, we find It already here, closer to us than breathing.
The Source of the universe is always pouring out to us, purely giving Itself, which is all we need, the limitless appearing lovingly and considerately in every wondrous sort of shape. We reach equanimity physically and mentally. The Unbound freely cooperates with Itself without control or hierarchy, with every being, whether human, animate, or elemental, in a leading role.
Desirelessness. An ideal “paradise” brimming with good humanhood would exceed anything we could attain mundanely. Yet sacred Being now surpasses such a dreamt-of garden. My kingdom on Earth is not just the old world. Awakening is the one and only.
What thing could be feared or desired, but that it would be an idol set up between Self and Self? “I Am Being thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” No image blocking my view. The Qur’an: “There is no god but God.” And the Bhagavad Gita says, “Seek only Me.”
The most massive outer demonstration remains finite, a lesson in the way through the maze, priceless in context yet not our satisfaction.
The joy felt in the Presence is our reward---nothing could be finer---self-defeating to think of “using” prayer to “get” something when the loving contact is all, I Am the meat.
888
Desirelessness. On the flip side, we don’t remain attached to suffering as a demonstration, any more than to worldly success. Beloved, when we’ve learned enough, suffering will not be courted as expiation, or sought as our way of service or work, or even for the acting out of non-attachment.
Ready or not, God leads us each uniquely by ways we have not known, to a Greater Love woven of both pain and triumphs.
888
Is It Good? Is It Bad?
A Chinese story: An old farmer depended on his strong, energetic horse. One day, it ran away. His neighbors all came by sympathizing, “Oh, this is so terrible. How awful.” The old man replied, “Is it? Is it?”
Then his horse re-emerged from the forests, and another magnificent steed came galloping behind it. The neighbors all ran over, exclaiming, “What a wonderful break! This is terrific!” The old man answered, “Is it? Is it?”
The farmer’s son went about taming the new animal. As he was riding, this horse bucked and threw him, breaking the youth’s arm. All the neighbors visited with bowls of soup, commiserating, “We’re so sorry. Such an awful mishap.” The old man asked them, “Is it? Is it?”
Then war broke out with the state to the north. Military officers entered the village and drafted the young men, except for the boy with his arm in a sling. Later the neighbors all moseyed by, telling them, “Congratulations. You two have all the luck.” The old man said, “Yup.”
There are parables for us everywhere in this universe of metaphors. Vision: A stick going into the water. Push it one way, it’s going the other beneath the surface, like an oar. So if we hold a preference and desire to see a certain “improvement,” an opposite effect may take place below the surface.
We American metaphysicians are producing our fair share of jokes. Here’s one oldie: A minister prayed every day for a Model T Ford. One morning he stepped outside and there sat a spanking new car. Then he heard a voice, “We had a nice Cadillac waiting for you. But no-o-o, you insisted on a Model T!”
We might pray for the rebuilding of the train tracks when an airfield is coming instead. We might pray for the best candidate, when the “worst” one will help the situation. We might pray for speedy recovery, when a person is ready to make the transition. We may wish to avoid needful lessons. So let’s not seek effects, but open our hearts, and feel the Omniscient holding us close in the everlasting arms.
888
The Unobtrusive Principle
Our infinite Center always acts unobtrusively and humbly, quiet and confident and generous as the ground. When we are brought to feel this way and act this way, in laying ourselves down are we raised up. We trust God to build the house. Our prayers and actions speak, while we don’t. We pray not to be seen of men, and even our family might overlook our core activity. We only part the curtain of our Holy of Holies to a seeker explicitly asking of us, who is brought to us without human means or our desire.
Humility
As much as we do all we possibly can, we of our own selves don’t accomplish the thing. Humility bears more weight than does applying ourselves. What position are we applying for? Being Is, We Are One. Our satisfaction springs from the love we feel in divine contact. Humility, not to seek praise from others or from our own self, or some fireworks “experience” or something to demonstrate our advancement. Not to sell our birthright for a mess. We have been both exalted and ground down by our missions, and now they unpeel us to go beyond ourselves.
Through grace, we find a key to the contemplative life in transformation, which drops the temptations to our ego, swinging wide the door to our real Self.
We yearn for the boundless Self revealed. The unending vastness of Real Being transfigures and renews and resurrects everything personal and gives us the assurance of Great Peace.
A Meditation
I have nothing to fear or desire outside, no fear that others may be injured, or desire to heal or improve them. A light which sparkles happily within the dark night sky, my Consciousness spreads out everywhere blissfully, extending its ecstasy throughout infinite reaches in an instant, always bathed in the Lover’s presence.