Session Recordings

May our gathering serve all beingness. May the heart of the heart of matter be recognized as Love and Peace and as our own true self.

Intention: dive deeper , a deeper look into “the way of being” beyond personal self. A lived experience of Wholeness. The actual experience of the Whole AS the Whole. Experience the uncaused Love that is the ground of Being. The ground that is beyond all duality and separation. One drop of divine love can turn you to gold—-Kabir

The subtle levels of our being, aren’t as loud and overt as thinking and feeling and sensory awareness. Its a dimension of Being that is not coming and going. And it takes some intention and practiced ability to attend/notice and listen to these dimensions of Beingness.

vocabulary:

Kundalini- activation, catalyst of spiritual energy and orientation. Beyond self-help or improvement. Comes from a much deeper part of existence. Essence utilizing the mind/body in order to become conscious expression. Bringing the depth to the expression consciously. Creates a physiological avenue, a bridge between the soul and Source. Formless mystery, intangibility into form. Emptiness dancing. Embodiment of the spiritual will.

Open field listening : listening without agenda or expectation. Make me an instrument, availability, rather than “hi what can you do for me”. Listening for listenings sake. Listening like you would to a friend in need of your undivided attention. Available vital openess

ego - a self generating process of misidentification with thoughts, feelings and beliefs. dense. limited. the narrator, describer and believer.

awakening - the deconstruction of the self generating process of misidentification. as identification with ego unwinds the ‘I’ of experience gives way to the phases of progressively expanded identification until the eventual falling away of the ‘I’ into the Ineffable All-ways.

Attention - the gift of human attention. we have the ability to consciously choose what we attend to. its a giving.

Awareness - the pure, formless, awakeness that allows for each moment.

Mind - intellect. thoughts. memories. imagination. judgement (“nothing is either good or bad. But thinking makes it so”- Shakespeare). belief. narration. the function that separates and divides into categories and likes/dislikes.

Wholeness - undivided, open hearted, sacred unbelievingness. An inability to experience separation or disconnectedness. The dissolution of the narrator /central processor. The Silence at the heart of Being is the sacred ground from which existence blooms and grows.

AS— the experience beyond personal self.

Transformed knowledge, which is an unknowing,

is the way of transparent knowing,

it is the way

of unselfconsciousness.

When you learn this

you can learn everything

and return to everything

and praise everything.

.............

All creatures flow and return to their source.

Transformed knowledge and love draw up and lead

and bring the soul back into the first source of

the One,

the Creator of all in heaven and on earth.

What is created flows out but remains within. So,

when we return to our first origin,

which is our primal purity,

we discover our freedom

and are free.

--Meister Eckhart

The contents of consciousness that will naturally arise into embodied spaciousness can be very real and very tumultuous. practice recognizing how belief and identity get wrapped up in content. give the conditioning to the heart for redemption or to the root for dissolution whichever presents. but move ever towards less and less trying to “make sense” of it or reason it. practice recognizing basic thought patterns, conditioned responses and defenses in contrast to inspiration, skillful intellect.

Fear brings up the urge to control. Control the thoughts, the emotions, the physical reality. Fear is uncomfortable. But its part of life. How do we open to the fear, the uncertainty. The basic fact that we don’t know. We don’t know. Uncertainty is part of the fabric of existence. Presence is the great transmuter. Presence is the radiant empty core essence of each and every experience and moment.

As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does

self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and

steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles

without any effort on your part.

—Nisargadatta

We think there must be something more to it. “But hey, what do I do!!!!” If the mind isn’t quiet, and I am experiencing division and fear, then what? Give gratitude for this human experience, as it is, and the conscious awareness to be living this precious life. It is great good fortune to be human with conscious awareness. And it is amazing to have even heard of spiritual awakening. Let alone to be living in a time and place where one has the ability and resources to practice Peace and practice giving the mind to the heart.

With Presence, willingness, sincerity and acceptance the faster and cleaner the belief-emotion cycle burns itself out. First, we recognize, in awareness, what is happening. Anger, fury, grief, whatever. Then we say, OK. We become very, very honest and sincere about what is real in the present moment. We stand in Reality as it is, with a yes, a heart-felt faith, rather than a compensation or defense. If the mind begins to tell stories about the experience, such as, "this is caused by that", "this is someone else’s", “I don’t want this”, “how do I get out of this”, “how do I get back to what was previously happening” or whatever. Then we recognize that the mind is telling stories or judging or describing and we continue to vigillantly and with great sincerity surrender, let go, open your fist, and recognize the actuality of the present moment. Not what the mind is telling you but what the actual experience is. Strip it down to its essence, its purity beyond the mind’s description. (The Silence within sound. The no-thing-ness within every-thing-ness).

The willingness to BE authentically present to the moment, as it is, without describing or attributing or strategizing, is the gateway to all the potential , all the Grace, for great healing of personal, familial, lineage, archetypal. The willingness to let-go of deep, tightly-held levels of unconscious belief, to release the grip at deeper levels is the path to healing the wound of separation. Healing the inner experience of the thought “I shouldn’t be like this, I am not worthy, I am not good enough, I am going to die”. Relinquishing the most cherished and tightly held beliefs of separation, of “me” separate from All.

As space begins to open and conscious Awareness begins to permeate the layers of inner experience, unconscious patterns of deeply held beliefs will be illuminated. As the unconscious becomes conscious very real stamina and fortitude is needed. Faith. Courage. The illumination of one’s True Nature is the dark night of the ego. As the unconsciously held belief of one’s separateness from Creation/God/Divinity is brought into the conscious light of unmoved Awareness the inner experience of being apart from All, apart from Totality, brings about surrender, letting go. This willingness to “throw up our hands” in acceptance of the minds inability to know, inability to reason out the why and how of existence, life and death, progressively dismantles all of one’s positions and identifications. In many cases, this experience is necessarily and sufficiently agonizing so as to move one to let go and give way. (40 days and nights in the desert).

Beingness, Creator, does not need the mind's stories or time in order to heal/shift/redeem the myth of separation. Unified Reality is all ways happening. The unmanifested potentiality of the ground of Being IS. Being Present and consciously aware at deeper and deeper levels of experience, more and more available in the NOW, is the way, the doorway to remembering through Grace/revelation/ inspiration/realization that there is no division, no separation, no separate “me” to defend. And we will have good days and challenging days. But our intention and our devotion and our sincerity will guide us and grace us as we choose to remain on the path step by step.

PS; Sometimes a no is a yes. Meaning that in the moment, as we willingly accept the reality of Now, we will often be moved to take better care of ourselves. As Adya would say, “all temples have guardians at the gate”. In a moment of pure recognition, in a moment or returning to one’s authenticity, one may be moved to make very different choices from the habitual patterns that have previously been governing behavior. The “rubber may need to hit the road”.

PSS; Just to be clear. Yes, there is space and room for every-thing. But the “bring it on, let er rip” pointer is not a license to harm. It is an invitation to let go of the resistance to Reality as it is. The realization, the direct experience of uncaused Love, naturally moves very differently than the concept "it's all good". The natural movement of uncaused Love beyond reason, that I am attempting to describe, and is beyond all description, most certainly can never be encapsulated in good/bad judgment. The mind can conceptualize a Truth and use it for gain. Adya tells a story about how a woman came to him and told him that a fellow retreatant had accosted her in the parking lot with a verbal tantrum. And then used the "it's all happening and it's all good and its all love" concept to justify her actions. This is to completely miss the point. The realization of, the direct experience of the Love that you are, not the concept held in mind, has no motivation to tell a story of gaining, justifying or using.

----Jennifer Tyler, 2020. All rights reserved.

As the attention relaxes and we become more skilled at allowing the attention to remain in the Unknown. The experience of ‘me’ begins to shift. Starts to loosen up and unwind. Pre-requisite to evolutionary love is the shift out of the me. There is a radical change in the perception of identity. Deconstruction process of identity. Loosens up from solid “me” to observer/witness, to consciousness itself, to the Ineffable Always. A lot of my teaching is from the level of Now/Here because this is pointing to the first major shift out of the “me”, a shift from me to Here or Now. Its an actual shift in the felt sense of identity. Its not a conceptualization. But then at some point as more and more identification is surrendered the “I” is returned to its originality in/AS the Source of consciousness. Radical subjectivity. Consciousness or relativity is the mirror, the reflection for the Source to become consciously aware of itself as itself. The eye in our head can’t see itself without a mirror.

The deeper you return your attention to the here and now, the less of a “me” there is. the me needs its story in order to exist. When the attention is absorbed into the context, Awareness, there is not story and therefore no me.

First, through means such as inquiry, contemplation, meditation, hallucinogenics, sensory deprivation tanks, trance dancing, whatever, we loosen up the reins of conditioning to create more and more objectivity. A witness stance that is able to be less embedded in the defense of the territory of “me”. We see the defense mechanisms and the conditioning that serve to defend this limited sense of “i am me”. We are able to move from witness then to the “I AM” experience, consciousness. Then eventually the light of consciousness, that which enables awareness to be aware. Attributeless Alwaysness. So there is no someone who is aware. There is no something which is aware. Awareingness IS.

Eventually all the doings,, the means, start falling away and becoming somewhat meaningless. Like you can’t animate them anymore. All the ways that we attempt to alter Reality all fall away. Enlightenment is a completely sober experience. You can’t go anywhere. When there is a “me” there is somewhere to run and hide , a story to describe, a defense to be employed. But when there is no “me” . When there is only wholeness, All-ways-ness, where would you go to protect or hide? Wherever I IS, I IS.

The cloud (the me) believes itself to be a separate entity with boundaries and limits. It believes that its individual characteristics make it essentially different from the other clouds. One day the cloud gets a sense that it might be part of a larger picture with all the other clouds, it becomes able to see the larger weather pattern. As the cloud continues to watch the larger patterns and be less believing of its limited self it begins to sense the vast space, the sky , that is allowing for all individual expressions of weather. The cloud senses itself TO BE somehow both cloud and sky. It senses itself to be essentially, fundamentally ONE with existence. It is both the sky (the unchanged, unmoved context), and cloud (the individual in time and space). As the cloud continues on its journey of self discovery and its journey of less and less defineable identity, at some point, even the Oneness identity surrenders and the Ineffable Allways, the dark shining that illuminates both sky and cloud recognizes itself AS itself and is expressed in all ways as LOVE.

Evolution IS the eventuality. It is the return of form to its Source. Origin. The Totality wakes up to itself AS itself through the mirror of conscious reality. It appears to happen in time. But it is already written into the holographic fabric of existence and therefore exists here and now. Just like the butterfly exists here and now as the caterpillar. The sprout exists here and now as the seed. The eventuality of resurrection, transfiguration and ascension exist here and now as this current moment. Evolution is a return to Wholeness. Where Love is recognized as the ultimate power and unified field of All. And the idea/illusion of separateness gives way to conscious interbeingness. A lived experience of belongingness, fullness, wholeness.

The Truth must be recognized through direct experience. The only way is through. Whatever level of consciousness or recognition is current and immediate is the doorway to the next level of unfolding. There is only ONE form. The form that contains all forms. Becoming and begoing instantaneously AS, from, in and through the Ineffable All-ways, the dark mysterious potentiality, the beyond.........

We seem to have a beginning. Out of nowhere and nothing we flash forward and begin to walk around the hoop of fire, the circle of life. learning, growing, unfolding, learning, growing, unfolding, it looks like evolution and forward motion but in the end we are at the beginning. The alpha and the omega. Full circle.

--Jennifer Tyler, 202. All rights reserved.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time---TS Eliot

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” Meister Eckhart

There is a silence within, a silence that descends from without; a silence that stills existence and a silence that engulfs the entire universe. There is a silence of the self and its faculties of will, thought, memory, and emotions. There is a silence in which there is nothing, a silence in which there is something; and finally, there is a silence of no-self and the silence of God. -Bernadette Roberts

Humankind is being led

along an evolving course,

through this migration

of intelligences

and though we seem

to be sleeping

there is an inner wakefulness,

that directs the dream

and that will eventually

startle us back

to the truth of

who we are

——-Rumi

Iqbal Sufi mystic

Who can tell what miracles Love has in store for us

If only we have the courage to become AS it is?

Everything we think we know now is only the beginning

Of another knowing that itself has no end,

And everything we now can accomplish will seem negligible to us

When the powers of our divine nature flower in glory and act through us.

However saddened I may become,

At the suffering inherent in this life,

The joy, inherent, is there, as well,

For both exist At Once in this Madness,

Known to those who Love.

And Something Else is there, as well,

Whether we sob, collapsed in sorrow,

Or laugh, dancing in the arms of joy,

Something that is back, behind, before,

The dualities of joy and sorrow.

Something untouched and unmoved,

By the ever-vacillating experience,

Of polarities, and all that lies between,

Something that does not end them,

But strangely, Accompanies them.

It is an Ecstasy, if I must use a word,

But an Ecstasy without opposite,

That Shines at the Heart of Being,

Even as within the peripheral sky,

Opposites come, go, ebb, and flow.

What is this Rapturous Radiance?

Is it the Soul, as some would assert,

Or the Presence of God, within us,

Or any number of things declared,

By the many faiths as “Truth”?

I write of “She”, “The Beautiful One”,

But know that those are only the words,

Of a Foolish old man, struggling to say,

As Attar said much better , long ago,

“I am in Love, but with Whom

I do not know.”——-Garden of The Beloved

Iqbal Sufi mystic:

Who can tell what miracles

Love has in store for us

If only we have the courage

To become one with It?

Everything we think we know now

Is only the beginning

Of another knowing that itself has no end,

And everything we now can accomplish

Will seem negligible to us

When the powers of our divine nature

Flower in glory and act through us.

What if every one of us had the lived, felt sense and direct experience of “we are all in this together”. We are an Us. Existence is a wholeness that includes galaxies, planets, stars, plants, animals, atoms, electrons, particles, waves and you and me. What if the right now felt sense of “I ” was that of wholeness. This would change the world in one blink of an eye, one instant. This is evolutionary Love.

Potentiality awake to itself through human self reflection. The experience of Source, or the potential for everything, That which everything comes from, That which is in love with and in service to existence, experiences itself AS itself. I am in the Universe changes to the Universe is in me. Nothing exists separately from anything else.

The core of the teaching is founded on the dissolution or deconstruction of the separate sense of identity. A relinquishing of the felt sense of “me”. A shift in the felt sense of “I” to an empty Wholeness. All the other teaching rests on this. Evolution, Nature, our nature which is not separate from Mother Nature is pushing us to move forward into an era of spiritual expansion. An era of heart expansion that I am calling evolutionary Love.

When we live from the concept of separateness, matter and spirit, me and God, me and my soul, we risk the error of a spiritualized ego. The process of ego is based in push/pull, want/don’t want, should/shouldn’t etc. Phenomena happens and the ego responds in a conditioned fashion that is based on the idea of its preservation. If this process of narration and self preservation exists as the driver, then a spiritual reality will be used rather than lived. It will be used as a spiritual concept. An idea that furthers and props up the ego’s idea of separateness and survival.

Take the case of the concept of co-creation. The ego process assumes there is a “thinker of thoughts and doer of deeds”. An experiencer called me. “These are my thoughts”, “These are my actions, “This is my soul”. The me believes in the “me”. It believes in the experiencer as an entity called me. There is a “me” that is co creating with GOD. Well……… best case scenario, the ego has an altruistic/idealistic intention. However the core of action will still be based in a conceptual duality. It will have an air of “I am doing the right thing, the good thing.” But at least this can be of service to the world.

But what about the not so mature ego. Where, although they may have had some glimpses into awakened reality, they are still living from separateness. A predominant level of consciousness characterized by deservedness and righteousness. In this case you have people walking about believing that they are creating and enlivening reality with their own personal “thinker and doer”.

For instance, in the scenario of the “me” that co creates:

“ I have a vision of reality and its all love and bliss and it looks like this and everybody is doing this and we will all be equal and society will look like this and these people are good and these other people are bad, and this weather is bad and that weather is good, and this way is good and this other way is bad and all we have to do is align with the right ways and at all times think positively and act righteously and I will get what I want”.

In the case of empty fullness, non existent existence:

“Beloved Holy One, That from which All comes by/in/through/from and AS. By thy Grace, make this life a conscious instrument of Wholeness. I don’t know. The way is wild and mysterious, joyful and unknown. Lead me to authentic expression of peace, love, compassion and justice through this individual ray of light. On the immediate path that is illumined by and AS your Love. Each and every moment is ripe with the Grace of potential and possibility. Each and every moment is the perfect reflection of Love’s Wholeness. Guide me that all being may benefit from and through these actions and choices. May this life be lived consciously as this wisdom, as this Grace. Shining consciously, bravely in faithful unknowingness.”

Awakened consciousness is characterized by a movement towards greater expressions of Wholeness, harmony, Love, justice, through and AS authentic individuation. It is fierce. It is the way of empty Fullness.

Clarify your aspiration. What are we for? Rather than what we are against. This sets the compass for your choices and naturally moves your life into the stream of nature. If enough of us wake from the dream of “me”. And set our compasses to realization and authentic expression of Timeless Peace for the good of the Whole. The fabric of reality is shifted on the level of spiritual, the blueprint level. Rather than trying and trying and trying to shift it at the levels of consciousness that come from belief in separateness.

We are the union of opposites. We are the sensory instruments by which Totality learns about Itself. We are created with the capacities of attention, self awareness and vision. So that we may be consciously aware of the process, AS the process, of Creation as it expands and evolves. And we can choose to be instruments , conscious collaborators with Love as it births the Universe of sound, vibration and light.

WHAT IF

What is useful about sitting in contemplation of the Source of reality?:

What if?

What if in this experience of 7 billion mind-worlds.

Worlds made up of rigid compensations, comparisons and defenses. Worlds made up of shoulds and shouldnt's. Worlds fed by a vision of lack and isolation. Worlds continuously and endlessly propping themselves up with more and more and endlessly more beliefs.

What if, in this moment, underneath these mind-world expressions, something began to ask

"what is here when thinking is quiet?".

"What am I really, underneath the thoughts and beliefs, what is here?"

What is never coming or going, never created,

but simply, obviously, wholly

Is.

What if some of the threads in the tapestry began to explore the conscious lighting of attention on, remembering, recognizing

The Tapestry itself.

Directly experiencing themselves, as unique expressions within a vast, unknowable, unified wholeness?

Rather than believing, in the mind, that their identity exists solely as a

defensible, limited and separate territory?

Awake to themselves, as themselves.

Awake to the One, as the One.

Not as a temporary, exciting experience that has come and gone.

But as a living expression of Ever-is-ness and shining creativity.

Unique, indivisible, inextricable, awake threads weaving.

Weaving. Weaving..... as Love without cause,

Peace without cause, Joy without cause, Freedom without cause.

Rather than from endless cycles of

deservedness/undeservedness, righteousness/wrongness, attainment/loss.

Expressing from and AS the Peace that passeth all understanding.

What if?

This is an invitation to stop. For one moment. And recognize that which is always here. That which remains, not in denial of circumstances, but regardless of, and AS circumstances. From that recognition, action and choice are freed as possibility and potential. A conscious reflection of the immovable, indivisible, ineffable Ground of Being.

The Essential Ground from which all phenomena: you, me, everything, flows.

----Jennifer Tyler

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kabir:

Let there be your Love, Lord,

Burning softly

in every cell

of my dying and

Transfigured

Body

By your wild

And merciful

Grace, Lord of Truth,

Turn Me to Gold.

So that I may Love

In perfect Fullness

You

Who Loves in me.

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. ---The Gospel of Thomas

The individual and the collective are fundamentally the same. The collective is made up of individuals. They are not separate. What is in one is in the All. What the ego considers to be “mine” or “theirs” is never anything but “ours”.

The question of worth/unlovableness is the core of the separate “me”. That there are parts of us (individually and collectively) so sinful, so deplorable, so horrific, so unacceptable that we must hide these parts, divide them off, deny their existence. This leaves us feeling weak, divided, exhausted, ashamed. Both individually and collectively.

Also, leads to the expressions of resentment and over extendedness when the “me” believes it has to do it all. Or the arrogance of “I’m so different”, “nobody understands me”. Mistaking unique authenticity for specialness.

All of the parts of our being that we deny and resist are treasure. They lead the way to greater and greater acceptance and compassion. Individually and collectively. As they are one by one seen and felt directly in Presence, which is Love, and freely experienced without narrative, they give way to the lightness of Being that is beyond personal identification.

The words can be tricky. But its not that we “create space” for these denied aspects. Or hold space for them. Its that we realize the sacred, silent space that we ARE. And in this realization is the capacity and the natural movement towards less and less division. When Silent Awareness is made conscious, there is an evolution that occurs in the individual that is natural. And orchestrated by the wisdom of spirit.

The ego will hear this as “I have to do everything. I have to clean up my life and the world and all the problems and the suffering” and become immediately exhausted, weak and disempowered. Understandably so. With Self realization one lives, for the most part, in the moment. The moment becomes the most interesting thing to the attention. It becomes very hard to move the attention away from what is immediately presenting. So one isn’t necessarily very preoccupied with “how to serve”. Because its obvious to the moment at hand.

In this moment, what needs loved? How may I love in this moment?

The human experience of this can be very tumultuous. Its a practice.

The ego process: there is a phenomena in consciousness, the senses send the info back to the brain, a name/category/belief and narrative is attached to the phenomena, this thinking process generates an emotional response, that then is named/categorized/believed and narrated, and so on. Once the nervous system is triggered the physiological sensations take over. Fight or flight is like an IV drug. Once its triggered one sort of has to ride it out. But we endeavor to stay conscious, stay present and question the narrative.

As an example, let’s say an overwhelming, sweeping sensation of rage sweeps in, in response to a phenomena. The mind will frantically search for all the justifiable reasons to rage. It will very quickly build its case of “wrongness and rightness”. All the collected injustices and grievances will rapidly fill the attention. And usually all the personal failures and reasons for guiltiness will also quickly come in to the thought process. When that becomes too intense then it will switch to all the failures and guiltiness of others. And on and on. Which leads to an even greater sense of disempowerment because the problem is “out there” and therefore not within my control.

Intercepting this process takes great devotion and realized Presence. A profound emotion, sweeps in. Could be rage, or fear. Could be love. Deep breath. Ok. Let it be what it is. A feeling, an energy passing through consciousness . Prior to all the thoughts and stories about the feeling. Its an energetic sensation. It is a deeply, deeply ingrained habit to name and ‘think’ about the feeling. To believe a narrative that will modify the feeling. But without modification through narrative or resistance it will shift. And this will happen more rapidly as the storehouse of repressed emotion and believed narrative is surrendered/relinquished.

If the nervous system is triggered into fight or flight. A sense that “I have to act on this feeling right now” will happen.

Take a breath. Come as fully into the moment as possible. Recognize the clear, obvious fact that you are right here, right now. Here. Its a sort of falling back into the witness. And eventually into Awareness itself.

Clarify the aspiration. Use the energy of the emotion to energize your commitment.

Ask a question, any question, just question.

Look at the rage as a child that needs assistance.

We refrain from resisting the emotion. If we are resisting the emotion its generally because it isn’t spiritual or doesn’t fit with our image or whatever. Resistance is futile and only strengthens the feeling. We watch as the mind frantically searches for all the justifiable reasons to have the feeling. Question these narratives. Allow that they may not be true.

Use a mantra or a prayer to intercept the thought stream.

As emotions come and go, thoughts come and go, we become more identified with what never comes and goes. But is always present. Changeless Presence itself. Awareness itself. It starts out as a witnessing. And with progressive identification with the observer rather than the experiencer we come closer and closer to our True Nature, the true Self.

Its Adya’s three: Keep still, Question every thought, Contemplate the Source of Reality. But we get so mesmerized by the process. And so distracted by the multitudes of “things we can do to improve our experience and world” and methods and paths, that we forget the third tenet. CONTEMPLATE THE SOURCE OF REALITY. What is all of this? Who AM I?

The cloud of Unknowingness, the veil of Prakriti, the mystery beyond mind can’t be discovered in a subject/object way. And therefore is not at all interesting to the mind. We can’t hold the Ineffable core essence in mind. In our attention. We can’t really discover something that we essentially ARE by finding it as an object. The eye can’t directly look at itself. It sees itself in everything else and has “an intuitive regard for itself”.

The expectation of finding a certain something. A certain experience. Something we can attain. Keeps us in a cul-de-sac. Its only by recognizing “what IS” that we come to know the Truth. We think that giving up our personal identities: our roles, our duties, our quests, our political stance, our sufferings, our loves, our familial identity, our moral identity, our societal/cultural identity; that we will somehow just sort of blip out of existence. Or turn into a puddle of “yeah, who cares man” sort of life. But these are just the mind’s imaginings of something it cannot imagine or comprehend.

Bhagavagita: The army that Arjuna must face:

Long held values of tradition. All that is considered good

Loyalty to relativity

Desire for more. Always more.

Relative values. Righteousness

False gurus. Egos using spiritual truths to gain

Idealism and ambition

Psyche,

Ambition and arrogance

“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.

This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.” ———Carlos Castaneda

Just As The Calendar Began to Say Summer

by Mary Oliver

I went out of the schoolhouse fast

and through the gardens and to the woods,

and spent all summer forgetting what I’d been taught —

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,

how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,

machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back

to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,

the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank,

the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light