Listen to ME! Yes, I know what this “ME” is. It is deep within, it is unnameable, but I have experienced it as reachable and knowable, just not describable and not felt all the time, at least not for me.
The world is noisy, insistent, confusing. But yes, I’ve known a place quiet and still, a bliss beyond all joys. Found and lost and briefly found again. A distant memory mostly, like a lost lover’s embrace that lingers on like a subtle itch.
I find this ME more often in nature and know it to be my true self, a self that seems to extend out to the things I see and love. They become me in the embrace of seeing them as they are. But what about things I don’t love: unloving people, ugly buildings, angry noise? If this ME is one with all, then is this ME one with everything I see? The mystics say yes, we are one with everything, we are the Universe and my own experiences say this. So that “ME” I heard in Part 1 was God, the Source of All.
The ugly buildings, the unloving people are all me too? No!! my heart screams. I am beauty. I am wholeness. I am love. Then why do I see all this?
If I am everything, then I must embody ugly, cruelty, greed. Or, are they just dreams, just illusion? And, if so, why is there illusion?
These are the questions of my life. Are they yours also? I’ve found a few answers that have helped me with this dilemma. It has to do with an awakening to a new identity of what I am, who I am.
The best way to say it is that I am beyond all this so called illusion, whether it be a “good” illusion or a “bad” illusion. Stepping back as a kind of witness to all the experiences has really helped me connect with ME. What I have done is to look at this embodied self that travels through this world from a state of detached watching,
In fact the more I just watch, the more beautiful and shining everything is.
For example, I have finally fallen in love with this “Janice,” this traveler through the world. She stumbles and falls, she fails and succeeds, she gets angry, she hates, she loves, This traveler through many worlds, is part body, part mind, part emotions, part “soul.” I have watched her and watched compassion slowly step in. Then questions step in: Who is it that steps back and watches a soul? Loves a soul? Is this the ME I heard speak as I walked on the path?
As described in Part 1, I walked along the wooded path and felt kinship and oneness with the trees. I watched them, loved them, and when they were broken, I felt them but did not take it personally. So, now, when this “Janice” breaks in disappointment, it is sometimes not taken personally. And more seldomly, even success is not taken personally. I ask: Who is feeling this anger, hurt? Who? Just asking that question, detaches ME and I am free then to love her back to wholeness and joyful acceptance, no matter what.
Awaken to Joy – to me this means to awaken to yourSelf – the one who is beyond all this drama. And when in brief moments of being ME, what is seen is so different. I see this Janice more peaceful, more creative. She (almost!) just allows life to be. How I long to be there all the time.
Years ago I read about an advanced wondering mystic living in southern India. He had no home, no steady work, owned only the clothes on his back and what he could put in a small knapsack. He always had a smile on his face and radiated peace and love. Sometimes a desire would form within his being. If it was hunger, food simply appeared or someone appeared to give him some. If the desire arose to go to another town, transportation appeared. A train ticket was found on the street, or a passerby offered to drive him without being asked. He trusted the universe to provide; because, he said, ”the universe put the desire in me and knows how to satisfy it perfectly.“
This man must have been in touch with “ME” all the time. He trusted, he loved. Judgement was a thing unknown. He was the embodiment of simple acceptance and continual joy. What kind of wisdom and experience gave him such qualities? I can only guess. In his lifetimes, he must have gone through many forms of attachment: lust, loss, pride and turmoil, until he learned to lay it all down. Listen to ME! must now be all he knows.
A desire has appeared within me also – the desire to one day be like this Indian mystic, free and surrendered to joy – that bliss found only within if I can only remember.
I dreamed this me
That lives and sees
A love light there
Outside somewhere…
But then she remembers.
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