Grace Is Now: What?

3/28/10

What?

Paying rent

loving someone

Biting into the apple

hurting

Thinking, planning

strategizing

Worrying, hoping

seeking

Exercise

eat

Live

sit

Meditation, satsang

yoga, prayer

Mantras and chants

gurus

Signing the check

going bankrupt

Seeing spirits

and disappearing in

orgasm

What

holds it all,

welcomes it all,

sees it all,

IS it all?

What

spacious presence

is humming,

not moving at all,

yet being movement

or stillness?

What

watches the questions,

whose answers

are one?

What

is this complete freedom,

softness

spaciousness

opening

peace?

What

is beyond a happening

beyond a doing

beyond Being

beyond words

beyond thought

beyond concepts

beyond birth

death

and yet,

includes them all?

This "What"

is before the beginning

of no end

This "What"

is the origin

of nothing

This "What"

is the answer

to the absence

of questions

This "What"

is not a

thing,

yet there is

nothing else here

Everything collapses into THIS

springs from THIS

is THIS

Ever fresh,

this herenow

is the first and only

arising

16 comments:

Svante Odmark said...: Amen.; 3/28/10, 8:47 PM
Julian said...: It's awe inspiring Mary. it can't draw nearer than it is, but it seems to in your words.

The internal conversations we have seem silly in the realisation of THIS - THIS swallows them up, like an alligator with a large mouth. Yet the conversations, self-doubting and silliness are all THIS as well. What playfulness is here! Mind-blowing...if only!

I hope this finds you in happiness and bliss.x; 3/28/10, 9:13 PM
Mary said...: Julian,
Thank you for commenting. Hungry alligator here "I" come! And yes, this finds me AS happiness and bliss :-))

a little non-dual *humor* !

Hi Svante, Thanks for visiting!

Love,
Mary; 3/28/10, 10:09 PM
Guillem said...: Hi Maria:
Precious blog and precious post.

I am with:

"This "What" is the origin of noting
This "What" is te answer to the absense of questions"

Magnifique. Thanks

Greetings.
Guillem; 3/28/10, 11:45 PM
Maury Lee said...: Absolutely excellent. Great writing! Lean. Love it.; 3/29/10, 3:45 AM
No One In Particular said...: Lovely writing Mary, and as Maury says, tight. No effluvia.; 3/29/10, 8:06 AM
Mary said...: Hi Guillem,
Thanks for visiting and for your kind comments!

Love to you,
Mary; 3/29/10, 8:23 AM
Mary said...: To Maury and Suzanne,
Thank you for commenting. Here's to lean and tight!!
(love that!) :-))

Lots of love,
Mary; 3/29/10, 8:24 AM
Julian said...: AS happiness and bliss. Such a subtle but important point made here. Not humour but a profound and all important perspective. What your writing is pointing to all the time. Unfortunately the habitual mind keeps replaying the old tapes. It thinks it is about the need for 'me' to be happy, 'me' to get this.

Love Julian; 3/29/10, 9:50 AM
Mary said...: Hi Julian,
Thank you for sharing that...I really appreciate your visits and insights. Yes, the imaginary mind has so many compelling stories...beautiful, really....and it's okay if there is belief in them, it's okay if they are painful, because no matter how compelling the stories seem, we simply ARE that welcoming presence, seeing it all, untouched and yet experiencing.

Thought and the belief in thought, or the separate "me" is not a mistake at all...it's God simulating separation, within what cannot be separated.

Everything is THIS. Everything.

Much love,
Mary; 3/29/10, 4:06 PM
MeANderi said...: "Thought and the belief in thought, or separate 'me', is not a mistake at all... It's God simulating separation withing what cannot be separate."

Yes! How encouraging! It has occurred to "me" lately that it's as if there is a 'me" by design! How freeing! :)

Your writings are always inspiring!

Thank you...

Christine; 3/30/10, 12:54 AM
Mary said...: Hi Christine,
Thank you for your comment! I so glad that something resonated with you.

Love,
Mary; 3/30/10, 8:18 AM
Theo Sijtsma said...: What is left....?
Who is to speak or write of that ?
The Unspeakable, the Unwritable cannot be expressed and
still it is what apparrently in various ways is being expressed. And no cause of effort is involved.
All is happening in perfect illusion.
Thank you so much for your inspiring words.
Love, Theo; 3/30/10, 6:46 PM
Mary said...: Hi Theo,
Wonderfully put! Thank you for commenting.

Love,
Mary; 3/30/10, 8:00 PM
Rob said...: ".....What
holds it all,
welcomes it all,
sees it all,
IS it all?"

Wonderful Mary. Nothing is excluded, absolutely impossible...; 4/2/10, 3:41 PM
Mary said...: Thank you Rob, glad you visited :-))

Love,
Mary; 4/2/10, 6:11 PM

Quotes

Consciousness and life - both you may call God; but you are beyond both, beyond God, beyond being and not- being. ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life. ~ William Blake

Consciousness knows itself at all times, because knowing is its nature. How could something that is itself knowing, not know itself? Its knowing of itself is not the knowing of something. Its knowing of itself, is itself. Knowing is present in every experience. Consciousness is that Knowingness. ~ Rupert Spira

Wonderful Writing from Sufi Master Ibn 'Arabi

Know that He is never in anything, nor is anything in Him. He
is neither inside nor outside of anything. None can see Him,
whether with the eyes of the head or with the inner eye; nor
can any conceive Him with senses, knowledge, mind,
intelligence or imagination. Only He can see Himself; only He
can conceive Himself. None can know Him; only He can know
Himself. He sees Himself by Himself; He conceives Himself by
Himself; He knows Himself by Himself. None other than He
can see Him. None other than He can know Him. That which
hides Him is His oneness. None but Himself can hide Him. The
veil that hides Him is His own being.

He is not within you; nor are you in Him. He does not exclude
you, nor are you excluded from Him. When you are addressed
as you, do not think that you exist, with an essence and
qualities and attributes; for you never existed, nor do exist, nor
ever will exist. You have not entered into Him, nor He into
you. Without being, your essence is with Him and in Him.
Without having any identity, you are Him and He is you. If you
know yourself as nothing, then you truly know your Lord.
Otherwise, you truly know Him not.

You cannot know your Lord by making yourself nothing.
Many a wise man claims that in order to know one's Lord one
must denude oneself of the signs of one's existence, efface
one's identity, finally rid oneself of one's self. This is a mistake.
How could a thing that does not exist try to get rid of its
existence?

If you think that to know Allah depends on you ridding
yourself of yourself, then you are guilty of attributing partners
to Him, the only unforgivable sin; because you are claiming
that there is another existence besides Him, the all-existent;
that there is a you and a He.

You presume others to be other than Allah. There is nothing
other than He, but you do not know this. While you are
looking at Him you do not recognize Him. When the secret
opens to you, you will know that you are none other than He.
Then you will also know that you are the one whom He
wished, and that you are forever and will not disappear with
time, for there is no passing of time. Your attributes are His.
Without doubt, your appearance is His appearance.

Therefore, do not think anymore that you need to become
nothing, that you need to annihilate yourself in Him. If you
thought so, then you would be His veil, while a veil over Allah
is other than He. How could you be a veil that hides Him?
What hides Him is His being the One Alone.

The condition for self-knowledge is to know that if you had a
being of your own, independent of other being, then you would
neither have need to annihilate yourself in Allah nor to know
yourself. You would have been, as yourself, a God, self-
existent; while it is Allah Most High that is free from the
existence of any other God but Himself.

And when you come to know yourself, you will be sure that
you neither exist nor do not exist, whether now, or before, or
in the future. This is the meaning of _la ilaha illa Llah_, There
is no God but Allah, there is no being but His, nor any other
except Him, and He is the only One.

Know that this existence is neither you nor other than you.
You do not exist; yet you are also not a nonexistence. Your
existence is not someone else; nor does your nonexistence
make you someone else. Without being and without not-being,
your existence and your nonexistence is Allah's being.

The void is a mirror; creation is the image in it. Man is as the
eye of the image reflected in the mirror; the One who is
reflected in the image is hidden in the pupil of that eye. Thus
He sees Himself.

Is one to consider a decaying corpse or excrement as God?
Allah most high is beyond and free from such associations. We
address those who do not see a corpse as a corpse or
excrement as excrement.

Then when you see what is around you as not other-than-you,
and all and everything as the existence of the One; when you
do not see anything else with Him or in Him; but see Him in
everything as yourself and at the same time as the nonexistence
of yourself; then what you see is the Truth.

That is why the utterance became permissible for Mansur Al-
Hallaj when the words, "I am the Truth!" came from his lips;
and for Abu Yazid Al-Bistami when he cried, "Praise be to Me,
the essence, absolved of all defect!" These are not people who
have annihilated themselves in Allah; nor have they come to be
in Allah. They are eternal. They never ceased to be, for they
never were, since there is only Allah's self, Allah's essence.

So if someone says, "I am the Truth!," do not hear it from any
other than from the Truth Himself; for it is not a man who says
it, it is the word of Allah. That man who utters these words is
nothing but an image reflected in an empty mirror, one of the
infinite attributes of Allah. The reflection is the same as that
which is being reflected, and the words of the image are the
reflected words of the Real One.