It's an ebony moon tonight, also known as the new moon. An extremely symbolic time to reflect on clarity of vision and commitment. I can easily be thrown off my unwavering clarity. Which probably means it wasn't that unwavering ;-)
These days I handle public criticism quite well, but my closest friends often vacillate between thinking I've gone off the deep end: either I'm too giving or I'm being too selfish these days. It's much easier to answer the "Why are you doing that? What's in it for you?" question as there is no me, there is no Other.
Yet this kind of statement strikes me like a stab (and so I've had to look at my reaction, feel my feelings of hurt and anger, and see through the projection):
It's nice to read about fashion and food, but what about some real life issues, Ev.
The short summary of a very long reply was:
Every path leads to God because we are already at the destination.
I've actually never felt clearer in my life as I do now. That I emphasize the feminine aspect of God is unnerving and alienating many many people close to me that are more used to my renunciate ways which divided the world neatly into meaningful, spiritual pursuits and then there was everything else. (FYI, feminine = immanent, masculine = transcedent. It's both for me. There is nothing but God, but Consciousness.)
Yet I've come to the point on the road that I cannot rely on other people's clarity, it must come through me. The other night in Santa Cruz, a teacher is answering a question from the audience: "I don't know what to say to my neighbor who 22-year-old son died when a drunk driver hit him. I've run through what I could possibly say that would be helpful. And I'm at a loss." Mokie answered, "Don't prepare what to say. Go empty, soft-bellied, see what wants to come through."
Empty like the new moon. Invisible, pure, potential.
The point isn't whether my friends or others are applauding or are doubting what I'm doing or not doing, I am the one that needs to stay clear. Most people drain their energy telling you who you are and what you should be doing, when they have no idea what they are and what they should be doing. With clarity comes action and commitment:
Nothing conflicts with Oneness. What is there to decide? For it is conflict that makes choice possible. The truth is simple; it is one, without an opposite. And how could strife enter in its simple presence, and bring complexity where oneness is? The truth makes no decisions, for there is nothing to decide between. - A Course in Miracles
How do we clarify? I cannot answer for you, this is my process: Mostly I wait until the muddy waters settle. Take the next most obvious step, says my teacher. Sometimes like many novelists the inspirational spark of the contours of a story begin in my mind's eye. And that skeletal story won't go away. It haunts you even in the belly of a whale. Good writers follow that spark, then allow that inspiration to unfold and take a life of its own.
The paradox, and it's difficult to explain in words (the doing of it is a lot easier) is that I hold this vision and simultaneously I am empty. Which is probably the summation of the Bhagavad Gita: do your work yet the fruits, the outcome is not your business.
If you have never felt more right in your life about a direction, stay with that energy and relax in the energy of pure potential. Believe in the vision despite appearances.
Another paradox: I maintain conviction in the general gist of the vision and deep humility that I don't have control over how it'll play out nor concrete certainty that I haven't distorted it. Is it really a pure vision? The sincerity of the latter question, Is it pure?, refines the smudges and shadows of your original vision so it becomes clearer and clearer. Many people ask instead of Is it pure? this same question reframed: Is this for the highest good of all concerned?
There are two things I reread and reread when I'm in doubt about the clearness of my vision. And I'm sharing them below.
1. Only in our love of Truth does the heart break open, and we finally stop asking, “How can I hold onto this Truth? How can I maintain this realization?” We don’t look at it that way anymore. We only look at it as “How can I serve this realization?” There’s no more interest in holding on, finding safety or satisfaction.
When the real heart breaks open, the question becomes, “How can one serve the One?” How can one be this Truth?” And there’s no final answer to that kind of question. It’s always in the moment, at every moment, to be it now—not “How can I be it?” in some image, but just to be it now. We discover that we’re no longer a gatherer of beauty, a gatherer of bliss, a gatherer of peace. We’re not a hoarder. We’re its servant, you and I.
You can’t lose what you serve. That’s the secret. What you serve, you can’t lose. What you don’t serve and what you try to hold onto, you can’t hold onto. It’s always slipping out of your fingers.
That’s why you can never separate wisdom or insight or realization from love or devotion. One has to find in their heart the devotion to serve the Truth that’s found, moment to moment. That’s an act of love, to serve. It gets us out of the last vestige of self-centered relationship with our experience.
When you touch into real love, the farthest thing from your mind is “How can you serve me?” It’s just not there anymore, not in the true spiritual heart. It’s not there in the heart that’s broken open by realization. Then we’re not looking at that Truth for what it can do for me, even though it does for you and for me, over and over, constantly giving itself.
This is an open secret, an obvious secret to living in Oneness: you have to serve it—not because anybody said so, because you don’t have to serve it if you don’t want to. But you don’t get to live it all the time unless you serve it all the time.
When I say serve it, I don’t mean anything that might even be really obvious. I don’t mean serve it in a way that might even be noticeable. It doesn’t have to be served with career, life meaning, goals, and all that. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about each moment, each moment, each moment. Is Oneness being served, or is it not? Is it being embodied, or is it not? - Adyashanti, "Serving the One"
2. In this world you can become a spotless mirror, in which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you to all around you...You need but leave the mirror clean and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself...Reflections are seen in light. In darkness they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretation, than in themselves. The reflection of God needs no interpretation. It is clear. Clean but the mirror, and the message that shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see, no one can fail to understand. - A Course in Miracles
p.s. I'm getting to point where I'm quit comfortable being the only one that will be going to fashion designer and buyer trade shows like the upcoming MAGIC, Pool, and intensives like "Servants of Truth" with my teacher Adyashanti within the same two weeks. Let's meet up if you're at either - and especially if you are going to both ;-)
Just before going to sleep, I checked up, and I wasn't really surprised to find out "a new article"! BTW, wanted to say, the NY retreat was AMAZING! I heard a lot about "surrender", which could be easily "traslated" by your “How can you serve me?” It wasn't for me a question, until now, but I'm guessing I will have to deal with it sooner or later.
Posted by: Chumani | Aug 23, 2006 at 06:51 PM
These days I handle public criticism quite well, but my closest friends often vacillate between thinking I've gone off the deep end: either I'm too giving or I'm being too selfish these days. It's much easier to answer the "Why are you doing that? What's in it for you?" question as there is no me, there is no Other.
Yet this kind of statement strikes me like a stab (and so I've had to look at my reaction, feel my feelings of hurt and anger, and see through the projection):
It's nice to read about fashion and food, but what about some real life issues, Ev.
Sweet Eva,
You are taking inserts form an email and feeding your readers partial truths, making it mean something all together different and weaving your two cents into it. The above statement directly relates to something which touched my heart. There is massive animal cruelty happening in China right now that not many are willing to look at or write about. Why not share all Ev.
I make Peace my daily BE and DO, but I suppose that I am not that evolved as yet, as cruel animal acts really get to me.... I know that as I continue to choose peace in my life, I will expedite the elimination of all cruelty to humans and lower animals.
P.S . Just in case you forgot, I am very passionate about beautiful things too, that includes fashion, food, fine vino and many yummy teas.With toast of course......OK, AND homemade jam from Refuge Cove B.C :)
Keep up the good work.
C you at the show.......maybe.
Enjoy.
Ruby
Posted by: Ruby Dosen | Aug 24, 2006 at 01:46 AM
Chumani, Yes, it is wonderful to be in the presence of Adya. I'm glad you were able to travel to see him. Surrender, yep. Sometimes the real question when one feels conflict (inner and outer basically same), To what would I be surrendering to? It's like a wave that 'decides' that now it'll surrender to the ocean. Well, always have been the ocean. But it at least relaxes the grip the mind has ;-) I like Mokie's come empty as well, or relax into awareness, or stop pushing and pulling, allow rather than resist.
I realize I have been struggling. There is no convincing, no defending, no explaining necessary. And I cannot defend Truth or my actions anyhow. It is as it is. Truth is.
Ruby, There are not half-truths here. In that context, nothing I write is really ever the truth since it is never complete, and on other hand it were complete, it would still be 100% illusory too. There is no truth here; perhaps in a rare blue moon, a glimpse of the Absolute or Real comes through. "There is no order of illusions," means one illusion isn't more real than another. Closest I can do, and I'm not very skillful, is clumsily point. No, not a stitch of truth here, sometimes pointers though.
I am not inclined to write about the topics you ask me to, and I do not have any issues with the Chinese. I can understand how this a very important topic for YOU, and perhaps others, and then it may mean that is the inspiration spark for you to pursue. Whether that means that you write about, do an art book, draw a painting, whatever. It's yours, not mine to do. I am not inclined to fix nor change the world. My path is to embrace everything. Now that sounds like non-action, yet it is not. This paper, Awakening the Anima Mundi, sheds more light: http://www.goldensufi.org/A-AnimaMundi.html
I see Beauty, Everywhere, not simply in beautiful THINGS.
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez | Aug 24, 2006 at 10:25 AM
Back from a run, and had more insight. I think many parents whom were wildly rebellious teenagers shudder in fear when their kids reach their teen years. Having been an environmentalist/activist -- you live in Utah, you are either that or Mormon ;-) -- plus a rebellious kid, I fear the wrath of activists. That disposable clothing/fashion post took some courage to write!
It's a conditioned tendency of mine - I feel misunderstood, hurt, unseen and unheard when people are trying to fix me, change me, tell me what I should be doing. I have no problem whatsoever with the work that activists do in the world - go for it - however I definitely have not accepted it I become the subject of the change campaign. This is something for me to work on so I get to the point that I don't react to others' judgment of me. Yes, I feel the pain and suffering of the world. No, you don't need to agree with how I handle it. In this specific case, I feel suffering of animals absolutely the same measure as I feel it for the Chinese as I sense the pain of the unforgiven.
I am not fighting to change the world. I am loving the world as it is. I am in a place where if I felt touched by the cruelty of animals, most of the time I'd have the presence to take that energy allow myself to feel the suffering and let it break my heart open. If it kills me to feel that intensity of emotion, so be it. It's too easy to find someone else to blame as a strategy to divert feeling the intensity of what we might be feel if allowed full expression. At this point, it may become easier to relate, have empathy, for everyone concerned. In my own experience, it's not simply easier to have empathy, what happens is profound.
"Bodhichitta is also equated, in part, with compassion - our ability to feel the pain that we share with others. Without realizing it we continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us. We put up protective walls made of opinions, prejudices, and strategies, barriers that are built on a deep fear of being hurt. These walls are further fortified by emotions of all kinds: anger, craving, indifference, jealousy and envy, arrogance and pride. But fortunately for us, the soft spot - our innate ability to love and to care about things - is like a crack in these walls we erect. It's a natural opening in the barriers we create when we're afraid. With practice we can learn to find this opening. We can learn to seize that vulnerable moment - love, gratitude, loneliness, embarrassment, inadequacy - to awaken bodhichitta." - Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You
I promised back in April that this would be a chop wood, carry water blog. "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water." Meaning that this blog will not be satsang, I will continue to talk about innovation, creativity, marketing, etc. There are definitely teachers out there to consult that have been awake for years and years. So this post is irregular. I am trying to live this, NOT teach it. I don't keep my promises because they are promises. It still absolutely feels right.
In another respect, I guess I am a teacher: "A teacher of God is anyone that chooses to be. His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else's." - A Course in Miracles
Namaste.
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez | Aug 24, 2006 at 11:41 AM
You are the wordsmith here Evelyn, and I get that whatever I write will be somehow woven into some other context, because you choose to see what you want to see.
YOU have taken exerts form my personal emails to you and twisted things around .......sharing with your readers only tidbits of what actually happened. What is this about Evelyn, and WHAT IS IT FOR?
My story is that I don't have the available free time to keep up this tit for tat dialogue with you, and as Martha would say it , "It's a good thing", actually a" blessed thing "in my life right now.
I assume YOU know who you are .
I assumed YOU were a person of integrity, that you walked your talk, that you meant what you said and OWNED your word........but then again I assume much about you.
I clearly get WHERE you are at and WHO you are being.
Perhaps all this is a final lesson for me in Ass-umptions.
Indeed Beauty is to be found Everywhere in Everything, from your sarcastic comments (who said that) to my taking things way too personally....... From massive killings of dogs in China to freshly baked croissants.
What is the difference really here , THERE IS NONE, except
the" meaning making" which our( MY) monkey mind assigns to it .
It's all a BIG JOKE.
There is no good or bad.....It doesn't exist. Whaty a silly gurl I am , I know that. BUT, BUT BUT,( there goes that but of bondage
Loomis :) ) my subconscious mind seems to rule at times, goes way out of it's way to create big time major theatrical productions.
At times it does not seem I am it's king at all and IT seems to triumphover over me and tell me what to THINK,and what TO DO, and what TO FEEL.
Funny how I see nothing wrong with G. W. or what is going on in Iraq, yet I am deeply moved by the "dog killings" in China and my ASS-umptions about you.......Ahhhhhhh Nuf said girlfriend.
I have much to learn.
Still on my training wheels, Thank you.
Gaaawwwd, do I need a holy instant right now or what!
It's all yours Evelyn, it's so yours.
I'm done.
Yours in Love and Light.
Ruby
Posted by: Ruby Dosen | Aug 24, 2006 at 01:13 PM
The question of God. That's something I can't relate to. I hear Adya say "God", Evelyn also mentions it. Of course, it doesn't bother me at all when I hear it or read it. But I really don't know to what you are referring to.
We invited once to our town a Theravada monk, Ajahn Nyanarato, he is Japanese and used to live in Thailand and now lives at Amaravati, in England. We had two Catholic nuns making the retreat with us, so, inevitably, the question of God came about. He explained that for him "God" was a cultural concept to which he could not relate, but he tried to answer "from within", saying that, anyway, if it was something we were seeking "there", outside, it was not that. But then, he had to stop, because he was not feeling he could say anything more about it. I understood completely what was his problem, the way he could not relate to the concept and actually, not knowing what people put in that concept.
And I understand if this is a theme where nobody wants to go in, sorry for being a nag, but this is a concept so alien to me.
Posted by: Chumani | Aug 24, 2006 at 01:43 PM
Ruby, We are each other's teachers obviously if I am pushing your buttons and you are pushing mine. Deeply grateful as our conditioning will keep coming up as long as it needs to play itself out. Right now, I'm just trusting the process as Consciousness is self-liberating and to not resist this will free us from the endless loop of this pattern. The original post was simply meant to be about clarity. I cannot make others clear, only myself. I wanted to talk about how try to settle muddy waters because a lot of pebbles and stones DO get tossed into the clear still waters. And I'm the only one that could possibly be tossing them ;-)
Chumani, I don't know why (sure he's my teacher, but still) Adya uses term God. I know why I do. Usually because it does bother and irk some people - so it exposes a resistance. I know it DID bother me for a long time as a person brought up Catholic, I became agnostic, and anti-religious for long time. The whole thing of "God" sounded suspiciously like Santa Claus. To whom you are, ALL concepts including any concepts you hold about God are alien. But as some are seeking God, others Consciousness, others Nirvana, others the Flying Spaghetti Monster, others Happiness, It all leads same place if you trust (surrender) to go all the way into what you do not know you don't know without resistance. (Really take the red pill.) I like how Stephen Mitchell phrases it (still pointing): "When everything is God - nothing is God." I use many terms interchangeably to point. Simply point is all you can do with words, concepts. Unspeakable Mystery is probably a clearer term!
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez | Aug 24, 2006 at 02:06 PM
...you should change pusher!
Posted by: max | Aug 25, 2006 at 03:03 AM
The passage from "Serving the One" really struck a chord with me. Every day since reading it I have had another small personal epiphany.
I see now how 'to serve' is simply to step back and rest-in / surrender-to the one happy Intent to let Truth shine true. Nothing more... everything else that's needed is given or just happens.
Thanks so much Evelyn.
Posted by: Nick Smith | Aug 27, 2006 at 03:56 PM