Inspirational poetry and writing for the spiritual journey

But I'll tell you what hermits (Candy Peddlers) realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything. - Alan Watts

The new spirituality will also base itself on a third very large spiritual understanding, which is that life is eternal. Most religious people claim to believe that, but very few people actually live as if that were true. - Neale Donald Walsch

This week`s themes cover the idea of the Dark Wood as a place to go in order to find the light. The story focuses on the power of mindfulness and creative imagination in healing our primary illusion. This is the illusion that we are separate from Love. I have added a feature to this ezine which I hope you will find helpful. Should you wish to explore further any of the above themes you will see dotted throughout the story words highlighted in green. For example Dark Wood. Simply click on this green link to find out more. All the recommendations are by writers, poets and storytellers whose work influences the writing of the ezine.

In this weeks ezine I continue with Part III of the beautiful Chinese tale entitled We Are All One

This is the story of the journey of life and our return to Love. It is the story of rebirth into life eternal and the knowing of the two worlds. This is the world of Time and the world of the Timeless. It is the knowing that ‘We are All One’ because there is no thing other than the All One. It is the realization that we can never be apart from this.

When the revelation of our oneness happens it is as if scales fall from our eyes. Where before you saw the world from your personal experience, now you disappear and there is only the seeing of What Is. You become a Seer. You are now a visionary. As the wonderful song ‘Amazing Grace’ tells us, “I was blind but now I see.”

When I say that you disappear I do not mean that you become invisible or that you cease to be physically present. What disappears is the illusion that you are a separate entity in time and space. When there is the ‘now I see’ experience nothing out there in the physical world changes form. What changes is the emotional immensity and intensity of the experience called life. It is life more abundant. It is the real life that is not distorted by the mask of persona.

Where once there was the life of ‘little me’ now there is life living life. Now there is the experience of the One and All living life through you. There is only the flow of existence and all of existence in the moment.

The associated feelings of this seeing are joy, bliss, Love and Compassion. There is a sense of amusement to see that people walk around thinking that who they are is the body alone. When one is the seeing what is seen is the beauty of the Now. There is the direct experience of the Divine. This direct experience is not belief in God but the direct experience that you are Love eternal in the Now.

Within this experience lives a paradox. There is the one who has it but there is no one having it. You are and you are not at the same time. The intellect will go ouch. It will tell you that this is illogical and you will be correct. This is because the intellect thinks in opposites and is unable to comprehend non-duality. Only no mind can be the knowing of the One Mind.

In order to receive the grace of this experience of at-one-ment you have to go beyond the illusion of separateness from Love. You have to go into the unknown. You have to venture beyond the norm of social consciousness. When you go beyond this, so called, normality you are metaphorically going to be crucified. You are going to be hung out to dry. You are going to have to surrender and die.

Of course there aren’t many of us willing to take up this adventure. We prefer to opt for self-improvement. We prefer to learn how to become a better person. We are not, however, prepared to let go the illusion that who we are matters. We are not prepared to surrender to the paradox that none of it matters because who we think we are is illusory.

This idea that ‘little me’ does not matter is very disturbing to most people. They ask, “But what has my life been worth?” Your life as ‘little me’ is worth nothing. Most of our life is spent living life for the enhancement of the prison of the self. We thus lose our real life. We lose the knowing that ‘We are All One.’ We lose the knowing that we are Love. We lose the knowing of ‘I am.’ We lose the knowing that we are the eternal formless/deathless One. What more is there to lose than the knowing of this?

To be prepared to know that ‘We are All One’ means you have to go beyond the collective consciousness that says life is only within the world of form. It is normal to identify yourself as a limited time space continuum. This means you identify with the illusion of time and that you are born and die within this boundary. In between this beginning and end you suffer. This is the first Noble Truth. Maybe it’s not so pretty a Truth but it come from the heart of the Compassionate One – the Buddha.

‘The next morning, as soon as the soldiers opened the gates, he was the first one to leave the city. He did not stop until he was deep inside the woods. As a boy, he had often wandered there. He had liked to pretend that the shadowy forest was a green sea and he was a fish slipping through the cool waters.’

Now the Candy Peddler has gone beyond the walled city of social consciousness and come into the Dark Wood. The Dark Wood is the unconscious. In this place things are not as they seem. Logic is only one part of the dynamic. The Dark Wood is the place of the creative imagination. The Dark Wood is multi-dimensional. It is timeless and it is formless.

In the Dark Wood the ego (the ever grasping one) has to be surrendered. In the Dark Wood archetypes reign. The ego hasn’t a hope of taking on what is in this place. This is the place of surrender. It will scare the living daylights out of you. This Dark Wood truly is the place for heroes. Often in the Dark Wood there is chaos and destruction. Only, that which is destroyed is the unreal. What is, in effect, destroyed is the illusion of separateness from the One and All.

In the Dark Wood are monsters. These are dangerous and destructive creatures. They represent all those parts of ourselves that we have denied and put away. These are the parts of ourselves we have put away into dark places and locked out of the city called ‘normality.’ There in that Dark Wood they are left to die. Only energy never dies. It can only be transmuted. In this Dark Wood where these creatures are left unloved they become more monstrous.

One day they come pounding on the gates of the city of normality. Often this happens for no apparent reason. You have not invited them to the banquet of your life and they, like anyone of us, want to live and be loved. Often they storm the gates of the city when you experience a major disappointment. This may be in the form of a major illness, a loss of some kind. In effect you suffer and you begin to ask the real questions of life. You might ask, “What am I here for?” or “Who am I?”

In this beautiful Chinese teaching story the old Candy Peddler knows this world of the Dark Wood. He played in it as a child. He remembers how it felt to play within the world where his creative imagination is allowed free reign. He, the Candy Peddler, has remained innocent. This is not the same as being naive. He has the innocence of a child that trusts in the existence and experience of ‘We are All One.’

He had liked to pretend that the shadowy forest was a green sea and he was a fish slipping through cool waters.’

See how the Candy Peddler is at home here in the Dark Wood of the Creative Imagination? There are no shoulds. There are no admonishments about I can’t do this. There is only play. There is only the wandering and the wonder of it all. There is no logic chopping. There is no denying the possibility, that here, one can be a fish slipping though cool waters. There is no inner critic saying, for example, “Don’t be so ridiculous, go and get a proper job.”

‘As he examined the ground, he noticed ants scurrying about. On their backs were larvae like white grains of rice. A rock had fallen into a stream, so the water now spilled into the ant’s nest.’

As is shown in the above lines here is one who clearly practices the beautiful art of mindfulness. Here is a man practicing presence and awareness of the now. He is not like us. He is not thinking about what is going to happen if we don’t get this or that. He is not thinking far of into the future. He lives the only time there is to live and that is in the eternal Now.

‘On their backs were larvae like white grains of rice. A rock had fallen into a stream, so the water now spilled into the ant’s nest.’

With mindfulness the smallest things are noticed. These are so called insignificant things that later in the story will become the most significant thing. With the practice of presence there is awareness and this awareness allows for love in action. This is not movement from ego. Love acts, because when love is, what is needed is simply done. When there is love in action there are no karmic consequences. This is because with love in action there is only love. There is no one doing a loving action. Love is all and is enough. It can move mountains or a rock from a stream.

This helps him focus. This is a spiritual practice in many traditions. In Buddhism there is the mantra Om man padme hum. In Christianity there is ‘Lord have mercy.’ Mahatma Gandhi used a single syllable word ‘Ram.’ Others use the word ‘Love.’ All these serve to remind the user of the reality of ‘We are All One.’

‘So he waded into the shallow steam and put the rock on the bank. Then with a sharp stick he dug a shallow ditch that sent the water back into the stream.’

He, the kind-hearted Candy Peddler, does what it takes. He is not angry at the rock. He simply removes the blockage. This is what we do. We dam our energies and all the little creative ideas get flooded with our damned rationalizations.“Oh sure I’ll never be good at that,” we think (rock number one). Then all the larvae (creative ideas) have to be rescued from the build up of emotional negativity.

Mindfulness in the form of non-judgment and seeing comes along as love in action and unblocks the stream of creative energy. This steam flows into that other steam and the creative ideas that are waiting to be born in the form of larvae live on. When you stop judging the flow of your life stream you become what you are intended to become. You are designed as a co-creator with Love. You are a wave on the Ocean of Love. You are One with the One and All. With enough awareness you can unblock all your life energy streams and attain to wholeness and the holy One.

You have to move beyond the limitation of the norm that says you are never enough. You have to move beyond the idea of separateness into the knowing that ‘We are All One. ` This is learning to live the real life. When you leave the attachment to the life of separateness in form to knowing that you are the formless/deathless One then you have come home. Then you have been resurrected from the tomb of Ego – the ever grasping one.

Now you are an arisen one who has overcome the illusion that you are separate from Love. You have entered the knowing of ‘I am.’ You become what is called in Buddhist terms ‘a stream entrant.’ You will not again go back to sleep. You will return to Love and you will return to your community with the only gift ever worth sharing. This is the knowing of life eternal. This is the Blessings and you are it.

Go to 'We Are All One - Part One Click Here
Go to 'We Are All One - Part Two Click Here

This is the beautiful story this weeks and next weeks Blessing for YOU will center around. It is an everyman/woman story about the search for healing in this world of time.

Coming soon to inspire and inform based on one of the worlds favorite and most inspirational poems The Way of Desiderata. In twelve parts a full outline of how to use this poem to lift and inspire the heart. Will include bonuses and other gifts.

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