Sacred Scribe Blog

Written Upon Your Heart

05/09/2013 15:59:00

Written upon the heart of every human being is the exquisite grace and power to Love.

Deaf, blind, mute, sick, healthy, rich, poor, black, white, young, old, male, female, friend, enemy...none of this changes our fundamental commonness.

We have all been gifted with a beating heart, within which lies the common capacity and ability to Love.

No directions to follow.

Nothing to understand.

It is already written, embedded, and encoded within us.

Love is.

It's an inborn, natural instinct.

It may feel as though Life has hardened our ability to love freely and fully at times, and it may be true that life has thrown us many tough lessons which have caused us to retract and self protect, but to remain in that contracted energy has always been a choice.

Remember...our natural instinct is to love.

To recognize and unify in our common humanity by bringing everything back to this fundamental way of being, is to free ourselves.

To bless even our enemies, even the dictators and leaders of oppression, is to rise above and to recognize the power we hold within our hearts to affect great change.

They too, have a beating heart, though they may have forgotten it's original capacity to love.

They need to be blessed.

How about the next time we pass a stranger on the street, we silently bless them as a member of our world family?

It’s no different than what any two cells in our own body would do in an automatic, natural act of mutual love and cooperation for the greater good of the whole.

"Holy is the sound of your own heart beating, the sun as it warms your face, the tears of a broken heart, a warm hand to hold, a meal prepared and shared with love, a smile stretched from ear to ear. Do not search endlessly for more meaning to your life than this...than offering a blessing to a stranger or even to one who you feel does not deserve it. Always wish others well. Do not fall into despair that you have failed in any way. Life is so very precious and simple when you can peel it back to love."

Learn to Live Loved

05/05/2013 06:57:00

Learn to live loved.

How many of us actually feel this way?

I mean really, really consistently loved.

I'm not talking about feeling loved by your spouse, kids, friends, or parents. I'm talking about feeling deeply loved from the inside out by Existence itself.

Recently, I was out for a hike in nature. It was a gorgeous, sunny, warm day. As I was walking, I was reflecting on how being out in nature is what brings me such joy, always, and consistently.

I asked my Self why that was, and heard this Divine Uttering:

"Nature is a pure reflection of unconditional love. It has never tried to take from you. It only gives. And what it gives is Love. Pure love...without conditions. This love makes you feel utterly safe. Every leaf, flower, tree, insect, animal, star, cloud, sunbeam, raindrop, and blade of grass is Existence saying, 'I love you. I am you!' Even what you term natural disasters, is giving on a level that you may not completely accept or understand in the moment, and yet there is a deeper, unarguable wisdom in the action itself. Take a look around you and see how loved you always are every second of every moment of your life. This love is eternal and always with you. Know that all of Existence is humbly bowing down at your feet loving you. When you feel that you are loved without conditions by Life Itself, then loving becomes your only reason for Being. Life in your world becomes easier. You begin to feel a deep, deep, sense of peace, trust, and safety. You let others off the hook. It no longer matters who loves you, if they do, or how they do. You learn that Love Is...and you are It."

A Song of Love

04/29/2013 13:14:00

I've been waking up in the dark stillness of early morning these past few weeks to the most beautiful sound of a lone robin singing her song.

It echoes in surround sound throughout the valley where I live, and her joyful vibrations stream in through the open bedroom window.

Little does she know that I am laying in bed waking up with a smile on my face because of her that could melt a meteorite, but which, in fact, does something else instead.

It changes the world.

That lone robin's most natural state of joy has caused me to add my joy to the mix of all consciousness, and now that mix will be altered forevermore.

In truth, she is my song of love, and in our unified joy we are praising existence, the web of life to which we are all connected and have the power to affect.

Such is the beauty and mystery of the moment.

There is so much grace available to us when our hearts feel spacious and quiet, and it can be the simplest of moments that humble us and fill us up if we are still and silent enough inside to notice.

Divine Uttering #9 - The Reason for Your Life

04/26/2013 16:36:00

"The reason for your life is to realize the Self in the midst of living your everyday life. This ability is only available to the human species, and that alone, in and of itself, is cause for deep reflection and immense gratitude. A tree cannot know that it is a tree. Neither can a cat know that it is a cat, or the sun know that it is the sun. But the human was given the ability to realize it Self...it's ground of Being...it's original Presence. To be here and to be human is an extraordinary opportunity for freedom, an opportunity that most people give no attention to, and yet it is the very reason you came. Many are lost in the throes of duality, and yet, duality is a massive illusion, for the Self cannot be two, just as Love has no opposite. Only the mind believes in, and therefore creates, this separation. One, singular, infinite, eternal, unified awareness is 'before' everything in existence, and always along the way, you have had the choice (ability) to realize this. You are the 'before', and this memory lives inside your heart. When the part of you that you believe is separate from this (the mind) comes to rest in the heart, you will feel a silent, sacred, peace. This is your true home and it is nowhere else but here, right now. No distance to cover, no miles to walk, no years to wait. That which is the silent peace of God has always been you, as you, living your seemingly everyday, ordinary existence. This is the reason for your life...to become still and quiet within your heart and know that you are Awareness itself. This is called Grace. This is your freedom, and every single, human heart holds this memory."

Unalterable Peace

04/18/2013 21:43:00

So many people are wondering whether it's possible to find peace these days, when every newspaper, TV news channel, internet media etc, is crammed full of the latest horror stories.

Even if you are one who avoids all media, your chatty neighbour or co-worker will ask if you've heard about...blah ...blah...blah.

Even if you have no neighbours and do not work with other people, you'll somehow overhear a conversation about the latest catastrophe as you are out and about.

There's just no getting away from it.

And there goes your peace....

But only if your idea of peace had been based on life having to be a certain way.

True and lasting peace can only be realized when you know that you are true and lasting peace already.

Eternal peace is what you already are.

But you can't know this about yourself as long as you identify so strongly with the body/mind/me/personality.

Imagine if you could give all that up for just a moment. ..give up everything that is not part of your original self.

Imagine the body/mind/me/personality and everything connected with it, (including thoughts, feelings, emotions, preferences, senses, family, friends, jobs, money, stuff, problems), simply disappearing for a moment, or rather, your attachments to all this disappearing.

What if none of those attachments existed?

What if your identity wasn't tied to any of it?

Would you still be you?

Would you panic?

Would you feel terrified?

Would you feel relief?

Would you be a more authentic you? Perhaps the you you were before the mass hypnosis began?

What would remain after such a let go?

What if you placed your focus on only what remained for just a moment?

What would you discover I wonder?

Perhaps eternal stillness?

Eternal silence?

Eternal peace?

The more we can learn to put our attention and focus on what has always been there within, the more our strong identification and attachments seem to fall away naturally, albeit, some of them want to put up a good fight.

Eventually, we somehow make the discovery that what we are was always there all along, but we were blinded by thinking we were something else - ie: a person with a body/mind, when the truth is, we are pure awareness simply clothed in a body.

Asking the question, "Who am I?" could really be "What am I?" as that would be more in alignment with the truth - at least from my humble perspective thus far.

Pure awareness is not a 'who.' It only appears to be a 'who' when it takes on the disguise of a person with a body and a personality etc.

When we make this subtle shift from 'who' to 'what', nothing can ever be the same again, although life on the outside may carry on as usual. If anything more is meant to happen or change, it will.

It's this shift on the inside that becomes our amazing grace, when the mind melts into the heart and finds its true home there.

Herein lies a perfect peace, which not a single external happening or event can alter...ever.

And yet, unalterable peace can alter everything.

The power to change our inner world is within us all.

To become an instrument of peace, is to change the world.

It has always been so. This is not something new.

It's an ancient, timeless truth.

Against the Backdrop of Love

03/22/2013 15:44:00

Against the backdrop of eternal love and pure awareness, our lives play out.

Most of us never stop long enough to contemplate this truth because we believe so strongly in our identity as a person with a body and a mind.

And even if we come to some sort of realization that we are not just this body/mind, fewer still are willing to give up their identity and all the attachments that go with that.

We say we want freedom, but only if we can still be a special "me", only if we don't have to let go of our ideas about money, success, relationships, family, work, or health.

The "only if" syndrome is the voice of the ego who believes that freedom is its ultimate death.

Where does the ego live?

In the mind.

Its only the mind that must become quiet, and that is not such a difficult state to reach when we can be gently pointed back towards our hearts.

At first it feels long and tiring (to the ego) and we begin to notice just how much our socially conditioned mind is running on auto-pilot. Just ask anyone who is new to meditation.

But after a while, (and some inevitable inner cleansing storms) we begin to realize that it feels warmer and more welcoming to live within the heart. It feels peaceful, quiet, and harmonious, and when we are there, we may begin to realize that this peaceful, inner quietness is really our natural, most authentic state, and that perhaps all the outer busy-ness of the material world, all that is not permanent (including our emotions, attachments, beliefs, thoughts) is not what's real and lasting after all.

It serves us to contemplate the question, "What never changes?"

The changeless is who we are.

We wake up each morning, live our daily lives, and go to sleep against the backdrop of the changeless, all the while praying and longing for some kind of inner peace and harmony, not realizing that what we are longing for is closer to us than our very breath.

We feel separated from"home" and yet our entire existence unfolds within the very space of "home".

The only thing that makes us believe we are separate is the conditioned mind, and the conditioned mind is simply untruths passed on which we believe in so strongly and which has created eons of duality and suffering.

The conditioned mind ends when we get quiet inside and stay quiet.

Then, at first, if we can simply keep our attention on the eternal, benevolent, detached, silent Self behind which everything is constantly coming and going, knowing fully in our hearts that we are that changeless Self, then grace begins to move into our lives.

After a while, our attention quietly merges with pure awareness, and we discover the endless peace of being in this world, but not of it.

Such is our real purpose for being here.

Such is the evolution of humanity at this time.

Unbroken Joy

12/31/2012 22:31:00

(birthday photo collage 12-30-12 , photos by Sage Barker, my daughter)

Yesterday was my 50th birthday if you're counting in earth time.

In a few hours another year ends and a new one begins.

Everything is always coming and going.

Nothing stays the same, except that which perceives all this coming and going.

When we get quiet enough and still enough, we may be graced with the recognition of all that we truly are.

Pure awareness, untouched, and unaffected by all the musings and madness of the mind. Free.

"The difference between the joy of the Free and the bound, is that the Free are not pursuing any 'thing' or any feeling, nor any sense of 'other'. When seen, what will be the outcome of this recognition? Unbroken silence and stillness. Unbroken joy. Breaking through it's own imagined constraints, unbroken joy, now here, proclaims itself as You."-Mooji (excerpt from Breath of the Absolute)

Shhhhhhhhhh......the sound of silence...of angels...of love. Can you hear it?

It comes from deep within. Be still. Keep quiet.

Walk softly and humbly into this New Year, heart in hand, overflowing with gratitude.

I bow down to the Grace of being fully in this world but not of it.

It is a priceless gift to be here. (watch moving 6 min. video about this)

Happy, Happy New Year.

Dust In The Wind

12/03/2012 12:45:00

To be in natural harmony with all that is, is to let go of the "personal" mind we tend to cling to so tightly...our personal identity.

In our original state, we are this natural harmony. It is a silent sort of grace.

It permeates everything.

But we can never know this or experience this as long as we believe there is a personal somebody...a self...a body/mind to hold on to.

In truth, we are nothing. Dust in the wind. Not even that much. A point of awareness in the infinite consciousness, as is stated beautifully by Nisargadatta Maharaj here:

"Your outer life is unimportant. You can become a night watchman and live happily. It is what you are inwardly that matters. Your inner peace and joy you have to earn. It is much more difficult than earning money. No university can teach you to be yourself. The only way to learn is by practice. Right away begin to be yourself. Discard all you are not and go ever deeper. Just as a man digging a well discards what is not water, until he reaches the water-bearing strata, so must you discard what is not your own, till nothing is left which you can disown. You will find that what is left is nothing which the mind can hook on to. You are not even a human being. You just are -- a point of awareness, co-extensive with time and space and beyond both, the ultimate cause, itself uncaused. If you ask me: 'Who are you?' My answer would be: 'Nothing in particular. Yet, I am.' "

Can you allow yourself to sit with this notion for just a moment...to contemplate it...to sense that you are not even really a human being?

Knowing that we are nothing but a point of awareness in the infinite consciousness can only come about when we put our attention on that which is always there...on that which remains after everything has come and gone, no matter what. And everything illusory is always coming and going. Only that which is real remains.

Our ego most often tends to believe that our path to liberation must come from some great and important "outward" event, like fame, fortune, or some other advancement of success "out there," and I have no shame in admitting that I used to believe this with every ounce of my being.

I had to pull away from the outer world for a time, and during this time, I allowed the fires of transformation to burn away all that I was not. My holy, silent, inner prayer was always the same. "Show me who I am."

Now I am back in the world, appearing as though I am fully engaged, working, parenting, creating, Facebook -ing, but with a big difference.

I am here, instead of "i" am here.

To move about in the world, engaging with what appears to be others, driving a car, eating, taking care of the details of life etc: all this happens with an inner state of being deeply silent, almost asleep. I look like I am talking, laughing, crying, angry, loving, caring, but inside, something is observing all this living with complete and utter detachment.

What is this something?

Can it be named or even observed?

One of the clearest, most obvious signs of having reached beyond the body/mind is that of non-suffering.

Along with this comes an inner peace, a certain inner quietness, and a natural flow of ease, simplicity, and harmony.

Ironically, what also comes along with this is an absolute lack of desire to manifest anything at all. There's just a peaceful, sort of joy that comes from receiving whatever comes unsought, and more often than not, what comes is so much better than anything the ego mind could have suffered and longed for.

It's all just for fun now, (creating), a game or play that happens not out of any sense of desperation or great need to feel creatively fulfilled. Pure Awareness is entirely autonomous, making the concept of fulfillment ridiculous.

Recently I have been making more sacred stone pendants, but have been observing how completely unattached I am to the process. There is no great need for me to do this, or even a desire. It's more like my Being is in motion with beauty and is naturally and spontaneously moving towards that somehow. I don't know for sure....it's all quite mysterious and unexplainable really, except the answer to my prayer is just like Nisargadatta Maharaj says, "I am nothing in particular, yet I am."

Sweet Grace

10/26/2012 08:39:00

We think we are here to taste the experience of life...the contrast...the duality.

And on some level, this is true, but only up to a certain point.

Our real purpose for being here is to discover the truth of who we are, and if it is freedom that we want more than anything, (freedom from the egoic mind) then this life of ours and all its ups and downs, and twists and turns, is the divine fodder to feed that sacred longing.

There comes a point though, where we discover in our hearts, that we want more than just to taste the sweetness of life.

As long as we are content to feast from the table of life's buffet, we never reach that place of pure knowing.

How can we, if it is the sweet taste of a thing that we are always pursuing? It is like a hunger that can never be satiated. Always, there will be the desire for more of that, and more of that, and more of that.

And what is so great about the place of pure knowing then?

Does it mean we never again taste the sweetness of life?

Does it mean we cast off all that has ever had meaning to us and end up roaming the world chanting in white robes and bare feet?

What is this great secret that all the sages and masters of old spoke about?

From what I've come to learn so far, that place of pure knowing is about being the sweet taste of existence, rather than pursuing it.

It's about knowing I Am this Sweet Grace , so why pursue it and all the endless suffering that goes along with it?

We can see then, how necessary our life experience is, in that it eventually wakes us up (if we want it to) in order to transcend it.

That's not to say there is anything inherently wrong with living a life in constant pursuit of pleasurable experiences. Most of us live this way. It's what we were taught.

On the other hand, it takes much courage to walk down the road to freedom, and most people won't do it voluntarily because it's uncomfortable and disconcerting to shed our attachments to the trappings of material security, comfort, and personal identity.

To discover that we are this Sweet Grace itself, takes a raging burning off of all that is not the real Self. It is a stripping down of all identification and attachment to the personality, body, and ego mind.

It takes a deep surrender that comes from an inferno in the heart for freedom.

As part of the common humanity, it feels to me like this is where we are all headed as our deeper nature and most authentic Self zeros in on its evolutionary "automatic pilot" flight to freedom.

It is our destiny, and we are not in charge one iota.

Most of us are realizing this, and most of us are gradually being peeled back to the bone in varying levels and layers, though I'm sure there are many who are reading this screaming, "It doesn't feel gradual to me!"

This is where great trust comes in. We learn to have faith in the benevolent wisdom of our longing for freedom, for this longing itself is Sweet Grace calling out to us.

Once we've made a shift of mind into this pure place, then all of life begins to taste sweet, for we see that all of it is an act of Grace.

This is Freedom. This is Peace.

Who can really know for sure where we are all headed as an Earth, Humanity, Collective Consciousness?

Life itself is always a good guide, so if we can get quiet enough, still enough, simple enough, surrendered enough, grateful enough, empty enough, humble enough, and most importantly....present enough, then I believe, without exception, the Sweet Grace of our Being will gently, and oh so subtly, appear as the perfume of our collective, eternal beauty, and will transform and infuse all of us with the exquisite space of the mysterious unknown and the unutterably Absolute.

In the meantime, it is enough to say thank you for everything.

Does Peace Have A Sound? postscript added 10/19/12

10/12/2012 09:10:00

The silent mind has a sound.

At least, that's what I've been experiencing.

Can that be possible?

It sounds like a frequency...a resonance...a sonar vibration.

It's very subtle, and it's always there, like a harmonic.

And it's always there because I have a feeling this is the sound of Infinity, Eternalness, Emptiness.

Of course, I can't know this for sure...it's just a hunch. I'm not a scientist , so I can't really prove what I'm hearing. (if anyone knows what this is, please let me know.)

I do know it's not tinnitus, as that condition is like torture from the research I've read.

This sound is subtle...a tone...a high frequency sound, but somehow muted, soft, and gentle.

Soothing.

Not irritating, piercing, or sharp.

When I lose my awareness of it, (mostly when I need to engage the mind for a task of some sort) I can simply tune back into it, like a radio station, and yet even in the midst of a task, I can access it by choice and engage in both task and sound simultaneously...like right now as I'm writing this.

It`s not like there can only be one without the other.

Not once has this sound been unavailable when I've tuned back in.

It's just there.

It just is.

And it's pleasant....beautiful actually.

Beautiful, because it's a reminder of what used to be hidden in the background of the noisy mind.

A reminder that a silent mind may just end up being a sweet, sweet song to listen to in the midst of this play we call life.

What if Peace has a sound?

Could this be it?

Postscript to article: October 19, 2012

I received this interesting article from a reader in the Netherlands. It speaks about the Seven Levels of Consciousness, with the 7th Level being Sound Consciousness. Thank you, Hendrik!

http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/sevenlevels.htm

I also found this article based on the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda that refers to the experience of hearing sounds in the ear.

http://http://the2012scenario.com/2010/12/what-is-that-ringing-in-my-ears/-guidance.com/houseofthesun/sevenlevels.htm

I post these links for anyone else who may be experiencing these new sounds.