Meditations and Inquiries

Focused Inquiry/ Contemplation 1

Part of the beauty of contemplation is that there are no timelines. No finite beginning and ending to the contemplation. Contemplations can last for years, lifetimes as they deepen and reveal. Answers to spiritual questions can't be forced. Give yourself the freedom to savor the contemplation. Let it live and dwell within you. Give it space to reveal.

Allow yourself to remember that there is no right or wrong answer. No good or bad experience. There is only the sincerity and authenticity of the immediate moment. Even if what arises is not understandable, expected or desired. Be open for the sake of openness.

Call a circle of your inner and outer voices, a gathering of light, to come to the silent table of Wisdom within. Listen. Listen. Listen. Listen without expectation or preconceived notions. Listen for fun. Out of curiosity. In the spirit of discovery. Allow these questions, or your own spontaneously arising questions, to marinate and penetrate into the dimensions of Being beyond intellectual understanding. Listening from the timeless Presence. Becoming comfortable with the mystery, paradox, and wisdom that arises beyond words.

How does the word heart resonate in you? What does it represent or signify within your experience?

How does the word sacred resonate in you? What does it represent or signify within your experience?

What images do these words illicit? What sensations in the body?

How do you know, recognize or sense heart? What is the language of your heart?

Where do you find sacredness? How is it experienced?

What does it mean, for you, to be on a path with heart?

Focused Inquiry/Contemplation 2

Inquiring into the "I"

When you look deeply, honestly into the experience of "I", what do you find? Where and what is this "me" that you consider to be yourself? What, if anything, is at the core of this felt sense of "I"? Approach this with open-field, engaged, vital contemplation. Who Am I? What Am I? What is "I"? Fundamentally, Who, what, where is "I"? Listen. Listen. Listen.

In general, we take ourselves to be our thoughts, our actions, our ideas, our habits, our history, our attitudes, our reactions, our relationships etc. We weave together these comings and goings of phenomenal, ever-changing events in a story that we then label "me". That's me, that's how and who I am. We count on this story. We rely on it. We treasure it. We feed it. And yes, these stories, these human comings and goings, are beautiful in their own right. But are they you? Essentially? Look closely, honestly. With ease and natural wonder. With a wonder that is free of expectation. Free of "what's in it for me?" With an attitude of discovery.

The keen nurturing of the inquiry into "I", generates an unveiling that can be unsettling, uncomfortable. It is not a casual, "ooh yeah, been there, done that" kind of contemplation. Its easy to say, "Oh, I'm actually nothing". Or "I'm actually everything". Or "I seem to be Nothing and Everything". Words are one thing and living realization is another. As Adya says, "don't mistake the menu for the meal". If you believe that the story of the individual me, is going to go peacefully and without complaint, you may discover otherwise.

If you have great sincere acceptance and surrender to the teaching of all the spiritual masters, those who have been liberated in this inquiry into "I", that EVERYTHING is born of the NOTHING, ALL IS ALL and ALL IS GOD. Then you accept that you, yourself as an individual ARE divine and sacred and an expression of Love. But in this acceptance you also, and this is the kicker, accept that everybody else and everything else is also a divine creation of the ONE source. Everything. Everything. Everything.

It starts as acceptance, as a practice. It starts as an understanding, an idea. A trust, a faith in the great teachings. And through courage, sincerity, open-field listening, radical honesty, and resolve it dawns into and permeates the layers of consciousness.

To the ego, the me-story, the individual, Wholeness heralds certain death. And it does not want to sign up for death. Its understandable. We can have compassion for the "story of me". It doesn't realize that everything is welcomed and included and born of the One Source. In releasing your allegiance to individual identity you enter the freedom to BE anything. No-thing and every-thing. I'm not talking about super-natural powers and magic and siddhis and all that. You discover that you are totally and completely in LOVE with yourself, this beautiful story. Not a love born of pride, ownership, arrogance or superiority. But born out of reverence and awe. That is why you ARE. Because LOVE has been loving you into existence from the beginning of time. And then.......then the individual expression, lived as the ALL, be-comes a natural unfolding of Fullness.

Look closely, precisely and openly. Stay present with ease, with an open-field of being. It may feel ridiculous. Or if you feel like you've already awakened to your true nature, your mind may want to own the answer. But this inquiry, this living question is fresh, new and eternal. It is discovered, freshly, infinitely.

When you look deeply, honestly into the experience of "I", what do you find? Where and what is this "me" that you consider to be yourself? What, if anything, is at the core of this felt sense of "I"? Approach this with open-field, engaged, vital contemplation. Who Am I? What Am I? What is "I"? Fundamentally, Who, what, where is "I"? Listen. Listen. Listen.

Focused Inquiry/Contemplation 3

What capacities, wisdoms and graces radiate within and from the Eternal Heart? What is the view, the perspective from the heart? (Forgiveness? Trust, Faith? Compassion? Tenderness? Unity? Courage?) Look and listen openly, sincerely. Without expectation. Ask a question. What is the wisdom of the Heart? How, when, where do I experience heart-felt-ness?

What emotions sit on top of, cover up, and capture the attention away from, the Heart? These emotions probably come with narrative. But try to name the emotion with one word. Such as fear. Or grief. Once the emotion is named, allow the emotion to return, without narrative and history, to the Heart of hearts. The return might look like an embrace. Or a welcoming. Or a reassurance such as "I am Here". It could look like an envisioning of actually offering the emotion to the eternal fire. Your own inner guidance will have the perfect path of return.