The Mirror of Self

If I start to meander into meaningless drivel, may the God of Hubris, pull me by my weakest bits and put me in front of a huge mirror. The fallacy of knowing anything has to be decimated in anyone that is willing to know. We’ve only got however long to do whatever it is we’re meant to do. If anything.

So many experts. So many lovely people doing their thing. The house is in ashes and we can do nothing about it. It’s just how it is. There are endless possibilities of recurrence. The search for God, Truth, Love, is so easily manipulated into a marketable enterprise by the well-meaning and the not so well-meaning. How do you know?

Which sweeties shall I buy and at which store?

Thankfully, all is done for you. You are the only one who is able to see where you are. If you are. The dream of awakening is so beguiling. There are as many levels of consciousness as stars in the firmament and each is perfect and exactly on line, right on time for the great party in …Where exactly?

We mustn’t talk about death. We mustn’t talk about truth except in allegories and parables. We must enjoy the dance. Try telling that to a five-year-old in Syria. Of course, dear old Gautama, (If we believe his interpreters. Would you believe an interpreter?), gave us beautiful words about not money itself but attachment that’s the boogeyman. Not beauty, not possessions, etc. I haven’t met a Buddhist yet that wasn’t as sweet and kind and lovely and exactly like the Christians and Jehovah’s and all the rest of the gang. They all believe they are right and yet they do not live what they promulgate. Usually they suffer and are miserable, or they’re bipolar and prone to extremes.

The God of Hubris has me by the elbow. The dude Jesus was good with the bon mots too. See any Christians giving up their self lately? I digress. God is Love. Undoubtedly. Yet how to come upon this love that is not greed-driven, not selfish, not sentimental? How to live with an open heart and not be deluded?

How to contribute to the whole of humanity, know the Truth, and be free?

Countless saints and gurus have spoken and come and gone back home and the mass of humanity continues in the dream. The Absolute that is the arbiter of all has no concept of time and motion. If you want to be anything you want to be it’s okay. There’s time for you to come to your senses. Endless time and possibilities calculated by the unfathomably profound to perfection. So what does it matter if I’m ignorant? What does it matter if I’m unconscious and lost in a dream of awakening?

What is it we want for Christ’s sake? To love utterly and be loved utterly. To have no fear, no doubt and yet be ordinary. No holier than thou smile upon this passing chimera. No desire to be loved on my terms. Well then, it’s separate chaff from the grain time and to hell with the Hubris Lord.

To find the Truth, God, Love demands a desire to be free that will take you to hell and back. It demands an honesty that will destroy you utterly. It demands a maturity, borne of experiential suffering, that has weathered the trials and tribulations with stoicism and humility. Once on the train of never coming back again, there’s no jumping off. No pretending everything’s okay because everything’s okay baby. Facing death is not a matter for negotiation. Facing death is not morbid and pessimistic. Facing death is the doorway to the mystery that is life.

So, what do we know? It’s all a game and you can play whatever game you want. Death’s at the end of it. You can claim enlightenment, awakening, and sell it like a packet of cigarettes. (Like that glorious man, Nisargadatta, sells cigarettes that is.) There’s death again. You can go deep into the Mystic.

Still got to pass through death.

Can you hear the wailing of all the lovely people? Oh, you killjoy. You don’t know from zilch. That’s right. I don’t. No opinions, no likes and dislikes. No mantras and malas. No Master between me and Life, God, Truth, Death. Yet I have an abundance of gratitude. I have an abundance of asking the mystery to destroy any particle of self left in me and declaring it.

Of course, you have to wash the dishes. You have to use the toilet paper. The glory of the divine is its unknowable profundity expressed in silence and words that are lived. Death’s still there. Or is it here? Here, where we face one another in utter honesty and are willing to die, by facing anything that is not yet willing to die. Now.

Originally published at http://beforetheend740510286.wordpress.com on February 3, 2020.