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awareness
December 2009 
The futility of doing something
Posted on Sep 25th, 2009
by 
Centria
Centria
Ahhh, there's a universal flow which surrounds us, IS us, flows through us, around us, in us, between our toes, through that chair, around the salsa, in the flickering dance of sunlight!
Why should there be a need to do anything except surrender to that flow which is us? Everywhere we are: there in that nook, here in the cranny, in the soft gentle autumn breeze, echoing in bird chatter.
Here, now, in this very golden second! Look all around, listen infinitely, breath deep the sultry garden! We are that which we've been seeking. We once wore the armor of personality and now we're free to run breathless in the dawn, barefoot, our bodies delighting in moving.
Awareness running the show, awareness the stage manager, awareness the All! It's the doing that does effortlessly and any thoughts saying otherwise are part of its magnificent production. Sit in the audience and enjoy the actors, marvel at the play of light and shadow. Surrender so deeply to awareness that you'll know there's no you to surrender!
Walking in the flow there's only movement and heart pulsing-beating in joy. You are the scattered leaves turning colors. You are the words spoken, all of them, only appearing contradictory to those who refuse to contradict themselves. And even that, a bliss to the Infinite! There is no contradiction; only salsa with its bold red tomatoes and sizzling peppers and sweet onions and obstinate cilantro and festive garlic.
Let's eat! Let's sup together at a table where Everything comes together and dines. Let's not hold ourselves in hard categories that can't allow the dance of the infinite. And when we do, let's drink lots of water to cool down the burn of too-much salsa.
Knowing nothing's too much. And everything is.
How wide can you spread your arms and sway in the wind? Are feathers sprouting, wings growing? Have they been there all along? Will awareness have you jump or smile or turn the page or stand bliss-filled before the pulsating flow, simply alive?
Why should there be a need to do anything except surrender to that flow which is us? Everywhere we are: there in that nook, here in the cranny, in the soft gentle autumn breeze, echoing in bird chatter.
Here, now, in this very golden second! Look all around, listen infinitely, breath deep the sultry garden! We are that which we've been seeking. We once wore the armor of personality and now we're free to run breathless in the dawn, barefoot, our bodies delighting in moving.
Awareness running the show, awareness the stage manager, awareness the All! It's the doing that does effortlessly and any thoughts saying otherwise are part of its magnificent production. Sit in the audience and enjoy the actors, marvel at the play of light and shadow. Surrender so deeply to awareness that you'll know there's no you to surrender!
Walking in the flow there's only movement and heart pulsing-beating in joy. You are the scattered leaves turning colors. You are the words spoken, all of them, only appearing contradictory to those who refuse to contradict themselves. And even that, a bliss to the Infinite! There is no contradiction; only salsa with its bold red tomatoes and sizzling peppers and sweet onions and obstinate cilantro and festive garlic.
Let's eat! Let's sup together at a table where Everything comes together and dines. Let's not hold ourselves in hard categories that can't allow the dance of the infinite. And when we do, let's drink lots of water to cool down the burn of too-much salsa.
Knowing nothing's too much. And everything is.
How wide can you spread your arms and sway in the wind? Are feathers sprouting, wings growing? Have they been there all along? Will awareness have you jump or smile or turn the page or stand bliss-filled before the pulsating flow, simply alive?
Access: Public
YEs YEs YES…
BUT… i am reminded of the great word Sloth here…
for you said…
“Why should there be a need to do anything except surrender to that flow which is us? ”
something similar to :
“Sloth is defined as spiritual or actual apathy, putting off what God asks you to do, or not doing it or anything at all.” the Wikipedia
:-) smiling…
once a saint named Guratitanund Swami asked Lord Swaminarayan…
“of these 4 ie
1. To meditate on God
2. To behave in detachment
3. To help and serve the sick
4. To talk about God's splendor
which is better”.
then the Lord Replied…
“the forth one is better” (to talk about God's Splendor)
Not being negative here…
i just like the mid point… where the good do good… ;-) that's all
for darkness is automatic… it needs not be told to come; it IS…
yet light takes effort and light is the guide to something higher…
Please think on this with a neutral mindset…
i apologise if i contradict your thought though… it's just me… :-)
[Edited in:
You said
surrender to that flow which is us]
Surrender to what you already are. That's the implosion. What you already are is surrendering to what you already are. That is the implosion. My present characterization of Realization (of Awareness) is simply that it's an implosion. Whether that is a doing or non-doing, who knows??? It is likely both and neither. So many things “go away” from concern and even from human awareness, upon the implosion. They implode!!
I looove your words, Kathy, they are/were a joyous trip.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
OM Bastet
Ohh wow…
i just read your previous blog…
http://eternalquestion.gaia.com/blog/2009/9/the-danger-of-doing-nothing
You are an amasing read…
thank you….
once we DO know what we want to do.. we have to do nothing else.. ;-)
Explicit.. !!!! :-)
i get it now… !!!
Ha…
i was a baby… for writing what i wrote up there ;-(
thank you..
you are brilliant…
I think there is something happening in implosion (good word!) that has a credible engineering base. Anything in this universe can be broken down and understood. Context is the only limitation to knowing and seeing all.
We are in effect taking off a series of binoculars, or microscopes, and expanding our perspective. We see something and then we see more something. Since we don't know what we can't see trying to observe from present reality keeps us in present reality. So to expand our vision we must be wiling to understand, to see, what is not real to us at present. In process this means simply being willing to understand. It also means, of course, being willing to accept that there is something more to understand. Believing you know it all is “being God”. The setup of this place is that we aren't God-until we are.
To step to the third level of perspective above us may be doable but is tough because that much unreality is hard to accept and that “new” perspective is really an old perspective we abandoned. It may have been abandonded in unpleasant circumstances so emotion surrounds it, and seeing that perspective brings all of the emotion with it into the now. Try getting hit with ten or so very bad breakups at once. Not so easy. So the best step, the next set of binoculars to discard, is probably the next one. Life serves it up on a platter for us but on earth you may get the third or tenth step too. Thus focus becomes more important than it has been for us prior to this earthly experience. This place has a lot of distractions, and a body is distracting as well.
Regardless it is all doable and no one knows your path but you. How you go about it is how you go about it. Understanding will be a component, so will love and so will focus. Everyone here is in the same boat no matter how “advanced” they seem to be. We all see what we want to see, all the time, and no one sees it all. Like the T-shirt says, you can't be first, but you can be next.
this blog reminds me so so much of Mary Oliver poems like wild geese
and others here: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/1170/oliver.html
Love “The Visitor”. Thanks for the introduction to her!
Thought I'd throw this in, from another group. Not specifically relevant to this particular blog, but to your subject matter in general. If the cut and paste doesn't work, here is the link:
Re: Real LoveLisaji said Yesterday, 11:18 AM:http://groups.gaia.com/integralislands/discussions/view/364883#483110
Love, OM
I was looking for somewhere to place this nice Kabir poem, and I think it may just have found its home here, almost as nice as loveliness itself:
When the Day Came
By Kabir
(15th Century)
English version by Andrew Harvey
When the Day came –
The Day I had lived and died for –
The Day that is not in any calendar –
Clouds heavy with love
Showered me with wild abundance.
Inside me, my soul was drenched.
Around me, even the desert grew green.
yes, but in the flow is the nag, the guilt, the itch, the thought that yes it's true, I want to be part of it all, but I can't stand cilantro. (cute read this morning)
The place where I just clicked said “Leave Your Wise and Insightful Comment” but I just wanted to say Thanks and Good morning :)
Dear Crude Bliss, well we're just new friends but how I LOVE YOU for both of your comments. You are not a baby…look at how your energy flowed so beautifully as you dove from one perspective and then surfaced into another one. To me, that's the energy we're looking for. That's the brilliance. Can we twirl on a dime? Are words our masters or are slaves? Or, better yet, is in the middle ground we seek like many of the great lords? Words shackle us; words can set us free. If we're feeling that churning sensation in our stomach, that can be our practice. That can be our doing! We see we are not free, that we are still attached to words. We're still fiercely claiming a viewpoint and claiming another one “wrong”. Which, to clarify already to OM, seems different to me than claiming a preference. A preference doesn't have the stomach-churning emotional charge. But, Crude Bliss, you truly made my evening yesterday. Thank you for reading! And thank you for “getting it”.
OM Bastet, wow, what a ride all this is, isn't it? What an implosion! What a song and dance! What a lovely Lisaji offering from Kabir. What I truly love about Rumi and Kabir and Hafiz is that they manage to sing the opposites into poems of harmony and we relax and just say “yes” and “yes” and “yes” again down to the deepest marrow in our being. So much love to you, as well!
Kevino, just read your response twice and it is such a good one. I resonate with so much of what you say. You are talking about the levels, and YES, it appears differently to all of us because often we're not communicating on the same level. We're all working (or not working) on different things. We're all realizing different lights on the spectrum. We're not one with the rainbow yet. Even though we are, we haven't realized it. So what is helpful to one person may be a hindrance to another. To suggest to one person to flow may be detrimental; to suggest to another to work may be completely off base. But deep inside we KNOW. We know. So often we're just looking for an outer reflection to agree with us, or we need to disagree with an outer reflection in order to build up our personal power before we realize the necessity to surrender before we realize we were always surrendered. Oh good lord. I best shut up soon.
Deep breath. Touching a stone. Looking around the room. Realizing “oh, awareness is all”…breathing…turning back toward the comments.
Nicole, oh thank you for the Mary Oliver links! A friend just mailed one of her poems here and I will spend some time reading from the site you linked. Thank you for offering them to us. Interesting that you mentioned wild geese. How 'bout turning the kaleidescope a bit here, too? Outside our house, down by the bay, they're shooting wild geese this morning. The shots fire off, boom, boom, boom! I want to think about the geese getting out of here and flying south before they end up in someone's stew pot, but others are dreaming of Sunday dinner. Go figure. Life….
Maze, yes, that's part of it too! The guilt, the itch, the nag, the fact that people shoot geese for Sunday dinner. Not always pleasant. And that's where we often get befuddled. How can there be so much beauty in the flow and so much shit too? Hmmm? How come?
OK, THAT is perhaps the most wise and insightful comment we (Awareness) can leave sometimes: Thanks and Good Morning. I bow deeply to you. Good morning as well!
Kathy! I love everything u wrote, your words like a smooth dance and now I echo you, beautiful you.
“Let's not hold ourselves in hard categories that can't allow the dance of the infinite.”
Kathy, I agree completely with your assessment of understanding. We do it when we're good and ready!
I have been wondering about relationship. It seems we automatically meet who we should when we should. However on a board with a lot of input, perspective can get overwhelmed. Or does it? I think, I don't know, that we should say what we feel and let the chips fall where they may. I think we ended up in this bit of uncertainty because we didn't express and of course, let others say their bit with understanding. How that all fits together I'm just beginning to discover. My approach, the only way I can see to be in this place, is to address all with love. Attention out. That should still the question of how to be, hopefully.
With regard to geese, I was thinking of God last night. I think God is “neutral”. No position, no right or wrong. In this place there is the game and anything goes. We aren't God here so we can't take God's viewpoint. To attempt to do so is to step away from the game and will impede our understanding of it. We need to have a position, a viewpoint, so others can see ours. This is a sharing universe. At some point that may not be the case, of course, but so long as we are here being a part of it all is a necessity. Thoughts?
Yes, yes, yes ~ being recieved into everything
no longer solid ~ fluid
letting go ~ flowing
The ride of our lifetime~>>>
Oh, goddess, THAT's exactly the delight in the great river of the flow: we feel so marvelous because we're moving or being moved in that infinite river and even the rocks and stones and damned-up sticks become less hard, less cumbersome. Because we're water. We just flow around the messy hard stuff. When we're rocks and sticks, maybe we're just rocks and sticks and delight in our hardness, ha ha. “Just see if you can make war with ME,” the rock says to the water, “You won't even be able to penetrate!” The water replies smoothly, “Do you think I care? ” The rock begins to pout, “You don't care?” “Silly you,” says the water, “I'm kissing your face every moment. What more could you want?”
Kevino, if we could just hear others simply and fully, letting them express their perspective and Awareness, meeting them just where they are…ahhh, the preciousness of relationship that is that intimate, that present. If we can meet ourselves with that much ease (letting each part of ourself BE, allowing it to just exist without hierarchy or wanting it to be one way or another) then when the exterior mirror arises we'll let that be so fully. As each view of the kaleidescope presents itself, to relax into it and sigh “ahhhhh…” We're always in relationship with ourself, with the All. God has broken His body into a million pieces and here is God in Kevino, and God in Jeannie, and God in OM, and God in…all of us. Awareness in all of us and perhaps we DO need to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And how we do that is in relationship, in allowing each of the single shattered pieces to be truly allowed, truly seen.
Jeannie, that fluidity, that flowing, that ride! Being received into everything. Everything. Every single thing. Nothing missing. Nothing lost. Nothing too little. Nothing too much. Just right. Amen.
Centria in the Center,
I am reading so many things(more of late). Of course the topics of these reads might have me in a twist, sometimes I feel like a good twist, other times I must anchor me to someone else so that I might get a different view. (thinks of your steps)
(thanks very much for the time spent on your spiral steps)
Anyway, I might decide to share with you more input/output on the specifics of the readings some other time. For now, I must not(ok maybe not but we find it IMPORTANT so there :P )
there are so many still flinging words that 'mean' something and words that mean 'nothing' all over as in some giant hurry to get someplace. I am noticing that we do not feel much like sentence structure nor punctuation–one is horrified and wishes to express this, the rest say oh edit me!
Ok, much of the current writing seems to suggest leaving society, because the animal-like drives of society seen from a distance are no more or less like animals in a forest, but yet while in this leaving, they suggest being alone, living simply, becoming well …less thinking in a way. Uhmm, which pssssst…is what animals DOOOOOOOOO. So, I think I am noticing the great humor in the lack of clear expression of a thought process, is it so hard to express because it is some effort at getting to a SHOULD–which shits all over me and you, or is there so far in society no adequate catch-all accepted word?
We cannot be the only persons having noticed incongruities in the best and the least of the enlightened, the simple, the naturalists, and so on and so forth.
Why must we have a specialness about taking in a single breath? And, this doesn't even count the exhale..or does it?
Smoochies,
Elisa
oh those shoulds…you try washing them out, you try… never mind! The shoulds get us every time don't they? There is no should about it. Both sides of the coin, whichever flip we get, can be IT. Nothing special, just an in breath and out breath. (yes, the out breath counts.) But when we find the parts of ourselves that say should-should-should lately I have been finding it easier to hold that part in an embrace and give smoochies. Not always, but more often.