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The Blessing
“May you live Jonathan Swift This is a short, power packed Blessing from Jonathan Swift, author of the wonderful book “Gulliver’s Travels.” He was once the Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh. This is the town of my youth. I have walked around places where this great writer walked never realising I followed the paths of such a being as he. What a wonder if we lived all the days of our life. This would be a gift beyond measure. When we think about living our lives this is what most of us do. We constantly “think about.” We rush into activity. If we have not done something or achieved something then there is a sense of failure. There is a sense of having done something wrong. Our lives are either spent "thinking about" or "thinking about doing." Then there is the constant “doing our life.” Our lives are always being lived somewhere, somehow, some time other than in the present. Living life is not a problem. We are the problem. You and I are the real issue. We think we are somebody. We set our lives around with limitation. We accept the social consciousness that says we are essentially not OK. We live our lives in boxes. We live in the box of nationality. We live in the box of gender, of family, of career and a host of other boxes that we cling to tightly. When asked who we are we tell everyone who cares to listen “about who we are.” Following this description we then say that they know who we are. We are thus left with a series of facts about this being. We judge whether or not we like them according to such facts. They give us their mask and we give them ours. This is not what Dean Swift means when he blesses you with “May you live all the days of your life.” A man such as Swift invites you to live “as essence.” One day lived as one’s essential self is enough. One moment would be enough. Yet here this blessing of a man is wishing you “Life for all of your days.” This is what Jesus meant when he said, “I have come that you might live life and live it more abundantly.” This does not mean having more or even having less. More life is not found by addition. You are already complex enough. Living life is the easiest thing. Look at young children. Living for them is not a problem. You don’t have to do anything. You only have “to be.” You only have to get out of your own way. When you are directed, “to thine own self be true,” you find that in being true to yourself there is not one to be true to. There is only the truth of the moment. There is only the ever flowing and overflowing “what is.” When “living your life” you see but there is only seeing. When you “live your life” there is music but there is only hearing. The hearer and the music are one. Have you ever lived such a moment were the music and you are one? It is wondrous. You enter wonder and joy. Have you ever looked and seen without words or judgment? Just looking you disappear and you are the seer. You become a seer. What can you add to such beauty? What needs to be added? You only add when you think it is not enough. When you see, hear, touch and taste then you come to your senses. You go beyond the senses into the sensational. This costs you nothing. This is who you are. You are essence flowing eternally. You are the movement of energy. This energy is Love. This is what is means to “live all the days of your life.” Such beauty, such wonder and such joy. This living is not a problem. "I am" is not a problem. “Me” is the problem. “You” and “me” are the real problem. We are chasing the illusion that we exist as a separate person living apart from all “that is.” We refuse to enter the magnificent experience of being a nobody special. Each day you are blessed with the opportunity to be and feel wondrous and sensational. We are only prepared to allow this under certain conditions. When the conditions are right then we say we will allow. Yet we miss. We always miss. We miss the beauty of life now. We miss it because it has to be contained within a hundred thousand conditions before being allowed to be "what it is." When you sense your essentialness this is enough. There is nothing more to say. How can you explain the unexplainable? How can you explain the feeling that you are love everlasting? What words will do. What to add? This is why they say in the East, “Those who do not know speak, and those who know remain silent.” Silence is the only real way to communicate the experience of the Beloved. Yet when you know you do speak. Jesus spoke. Buddha spoke. Mohammad spoke. All your mystics spoke about “living life more abundantly.” Often toward the end of their lives they entered a place of silence. What further to say? They had been saying the words for so many years. Words they knew often get in the way. Yet this is sometimes all we have. So “live all the days of your life.” Realise this life is not “your” life. It is only life flowing eternally and you are part of this flow. Life is it all. It is everything. You are not separate from it. Neither can you ever be separate from it. We are all one. This is what the mystics and masters have been shouting from the rooftops. Yet we are deaf to the silence between their beautiful words. Our problem is that we think and feel ourselves to be separate from life. We are promised everlasting life if we "do good" and we die. Well we will all die but somehow we never feel quite “good enough.” You are being lied too. You are being told what I refer to as “porkies.” Most of your religious leaders are leading from the rear. They are leading from the past. They have little or no presence. They see through a glass darkly and they tell you that they have the vision. This is the blind leading the blind. Their security becomes a question of numbers. If there are enough people singing from the same hymn sheet then surely they cannot all be wrong. They tell you that you must imitate Christ. You cannot imitate Christ. You can only be Christlike. You can only flow the way that Christ flowed. Otherwise you are “doing your life.” Jesus does not want you to live his life. He wants you to live your own. When you try to live the life of Christ you have missed. You have missed the opportunity to be Love. This is the way the truth and the life. You are not to become a “good person.” How can a mask of persona that is an illusion become good. Come home. Be only what you are. Be the essence of love. All else is illusion. It is a construct of the mind. Just take this day and spend time in silence. Ten minutes is enough to begin with. This can be spent taking a walk. When you do this simply walk. Be aware that your mind will be elsewhere. Thoughts will come and go. Just let them come and go. We let our minds drift all the time. We call this thinking. This is just a monkey on a chain. We all do this. Have you ever driven a familiar route and found yourself wondering how you got to your destination. Take a walk into presence. Be present to each footstep. Breathe in and breathe out. Be in love with the body. Love its grace and its flow. Walk and become the walking. This wondrous gift of a body allows you to know life in its fullness. You need it. It helps you come to realise how sensational this essencial being is. This being is the real you. Just a ten-minute walk. Be with this walking. Become the walking. Stop doing the walk and flow. This is a form of grace. Of course you will try to “do grace.” This is natural to the way you live your life situation. You will be concerned if you are “doing” it right or “doing” it wrong. You will be the tension that gets in the way. It is like riding a bike for the first time. The knack happens. Suddenly you are balanced and away. You never forget how to ride a bike ever again. You are not at ease with your essence. You have little clue how to be at one with it. This is why many of us suffer. If you did not suffer then you might never know that you are the ocean of bliss. You might miss. Each day be alive to your essence. Spend some time each day in silence. Watch the way your mind takes you away from the moment. Watch when you focus on the moment how you tend to describe it. When asked to look see how you tend to label. Watch how you tend to remember, compare, judge and how you are always adding something to the moment. All this movement in the mind and you think you are that. Thoughts come and thoughts go. Let them come and let them go. With each thought you attach a feeling and this becomes an emotion. There is motion but there is also blockage. Feel more and “think about” less. This is the beginning of faith. This is the beginning of living a life more abundantly. This is giving no thought to tomorrow but feeling the ever present now. There are many of us in the West who want to know “how to” feel. There are even more of us who want to know “what to” feel. Keep it simple. Just begin. Take the next step. Remember to breathe in and breathe out. This is your direct connection to the essential you. When it leaves the body the essential you is still essential. Live all the days of your life and you will come to know that you are life everlasting. No beginning and no end. Simply a no body. Simply an ever happening now. No time. No space. Only the wondrous, sensational, joy filled God given experience of “I am.” This is the experience of unconditional love flowing forever and forever. This is returning to the source. © Tony Cuckson 2006 RECOMMENDED READING
Tony Cuckson who runs these groups is a storyteller, writer, workshop leader and Anam cara (Soul Friend) .
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