THAT WHICH CANNOT CHANGE
IS
ALL THAT IS….AH!
∞
BEHOLD & HELD
AS THAT PURE SILENT LISTENER**
IN/OF/AS ALL ASPECTS OF ALL
=
THE TRANSPARENT ZERO POINT*
OF
‘THE LISTENER’**
ew
3:56 AM-5/9/19
*Gregg Braden....quotes below
**Taylor Caldwell VITAL quote in Read More
from her book
The Listener
below
Afternoon photos
INHALING ME GENTLY HOME
ew
Every child has known god,
not the god of names,
not the god of don’t,
not the god who does anything
weird,
but the god who only knows four words
and keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come dance with Me."....
Come
Dance
—Hafiz
https://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2019/05/four-words.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FmnCFM+%28Love+Is+A+Place%29
Dance
—Hafiz
https://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2019/05/four-words.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FmnCFM+%28Love+Is+A+Place%29
mystic and author Thomas Merton wrote of le point vierge
- the virgin point -
and described how there is "at the center of our being
a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion,
a point of pure truth,
a point or spark which belongs entirely to God...
which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind
or the brutalities of our own will".
in the great wisdom traditions,
particularly in Sufism,
and it is from this tradition that
Thomas Merton developed his vision
of a point of pure truth.
for instance in John Lennon's Imagine,
which
- in an unashamed hymn to le point vierge -
implores us to "imagine there is
no heaven..
no religion...
no countries..
no possessions".
can be extended beyond faith traditions to cultural traditions,
and in an unstructured way I have in recent years
found myself exploring diverse overgrown paths
in search of the point
where dogma and conditioning disappear
and pure truth can be glimpsed.
classical, sacred, world and all music fuse
into a single Nada Brahma,
and the great wisdom traditions
-- Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism --
coexist without conflict
https://www.overgrownpath.com/2014/12/in-search-of-le-point-vierge.html
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/on-the-road-with-thomas-merton/
In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, where he (Thomas Merton) wrote:
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness
which is untouched by sin and by illusion,
a point of pure truth,
a point or spark which belongs entirely to God,
which is never at our disposal,
from which God disposes of our lives,
which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind
or the brutalities of our own will.
This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty
is the pure glory of God in us.
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/on-the-road-with-thomas-merton/
I am as tired of talking and writing
as if I had done it for centuries.
Now it is the time to listen at length to this Asian ocean.
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/on-the-road-with-thomas-merton/
His (Thomas Merton) real home was le point vierge,
the place in himself reserved only for God.
Perhaps I have an obligation to preserve the stillness,
the silence,
the poverty,
the virginal point of pure nothingness
which is at the center of all other loves.
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/on-the-road-with-thomas-merton/
if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?”
Merton asked.
“This is the most important of all voyages of discovery,
and without it all the rest are not only useless but disastrous.”
What can we gain by fixing climate change or ending poverty
or terraforming Mars if we remain alienated from ourselves?
How to cross that abyss?
You must let the prayer descend to your heart, laddie!
Brother Isidore:
Let us be silent before God who made us.
You learn to talk to silence, and silence answers in silence.
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/on-the-road-with-thomas-merton/
The lesson was less about reacting to what the world was showing us
and more about creating our own rules for what we choose to experience.
The secret here is that our instructor was experiencing himself
from the perspective that he was already fixed
in one place on that mat.
In those moments,
he was living from the outcome of his meditation.
Until he chose
to break the chains in his imagination,
nothing could move him.
And that’s precisely what we found out.”
― Gregg Braden,
Above is conclusion of short article here...well worth the read...:
https://www.greggbraden.com/blog/message-from-a-native-american-wisdom-keeper/
The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/25150.Gregg_Braden?page=2
See Read More below afternoon quotes for full story of above quote
AFTERNOON
Close your ears and listen!
Rumi
There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine.
O traveller, if you are in search of that, don’t look outside,
look inside yourself and seek that..
Rumi
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly.
Rumi
for I come from the very Soul of all souls.
Rumi
for
More from Gregg Braden
+
Excellent Taylor Caldwell - Seneca's THE LISTENER
+
Foreword to Caldwell's Book THE LISTENER
+
Additional Photos
The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief
Gregg Braden
“One day in the dojo (the martial-arts studio) before our karate class began,
I witnessed the power of a concentrated focus unlike anything that I’d ever seen growing up in the heartland of northern Missouri.
On that day, our instructor walked into the room and asked us
to do something very different from the form and movement practices
that were familiar to us.
He explained that he would seat himself in the center of the thick mat
where we honed our skills, close his eyes, and go into a meditation.
During this exercise, he would stretch his arms out on either side of his body, with his palms open and facedown.
He asked us to give him a couple of minutes to “anchor” himself
in this T position and then invited us to do anything that we could
to move him from his place.
The men in our class outnumbered the women by about two to one,
and there had always been a friendly competition between the sexes.
On that day, however, there was no such division.
Together, we all sat close to our instructor, silent and motionless.
We watched as he simply walked to the center of the mat,
sat down with his legs crossed, closed his eyes,
held out his arms, and changed his breathing pattern.
I remember that I was fascinated and observed closely
as his chest swelled and shrank,
slower and slower with each breath
until it was hard to tell that he was breathing at all.
With a nod of agreement, we moved closer and tried to move our instructor from his place.
At first, we thought that this was going to be an easy exercise, and only a few of us tried.
As we grabbed his arms and legs,
we pushed and pulled in different directions with absolutely no success.
Amazed, we changed our strategy and gathered on one side of him to use our combined weight to force him in the opposite direction.
Still, we couldn’t even budge his arms or the fingers on his hands!
After a few moments, he took a deep breath,
opened his eyes, and with the gentle humor we’d come to respect,
he asked,
“What happened? How come I’m still sitting here?”
After a big laugh that eased the tension and with a familiar gleam in his eyes,
he explained what had just happened.
“When I closed my eyes,” he said,
“I had a vision that was like a dream, and that dream became my reality.
I pictured two mountains, one on either side of my body,
and myself on the ground between the peaks.”
As he spoke, I immediately saw the image in my mind’s eye and felt
that he was somehow imbuing us with a direct experience of his vision.
“Attached to each of my arms,” he continued,
“I saw a chain that bound me to the top of each mountain.
As long as the chains were there,
I was connected to the mountains in a way that nothing could change.”
Our instructor looked around at the faces that were riveted on each word he was sharing. With a big grin, he concluded,
“Not even a classroom full of my best students could change my dream.”
Through a brief demonstration in a martial-arts classroom,
this beautiful man had just given each of us a direct sense of the power
to redefine our relationship to the world.
The lesson was less about reacting to what the world was showing us
and more about creating our own rules for what we choose to experience.
The secret here is that our instructor was experiencing himself
from the perspective that he was already fixed in one place on that mat.
In those moments, he was living from the outcome of his meditation.
Until he chose to break the chains in his imagination,
nothing could move him.
And that’s precisely what we found out.”
― Gregg Braden, The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/25150.Gregg_Braden?page=2
is quoted in beginning of Taylor Caldwell's
THE LISTENER
Who listens to us in all the world, whether he be friend or teacher, brother or father of mother, sister or neighbor, son or ruler or servant? Does he listen, our advocate, or our husbands or wives, those who are dearest to us?
Do the stars listen, when we turn despairingly away from man, or the great winds, or the seas or the mountains? To whom an any man say--Here I am! Behold me in my nakedness, my wounds, my secret grief, my despair, my betrayal, my pain, my tongue which cannot express my sorrow, my terror, my abandonment.
Listen to me for a day--an hour!--a moment!
lest I expire in my terrible wilderness, my lonely silence!
O God, is there noone to listen?
* * * *
Is there no one to listen? you ask.
Ah yes there is one who listens, who will always listen.
Hasten to him, my friend. He waits on the hill for you.
For you, alone.
Seneca
to
THE LISTENER
Taylor Caldwell
THIS IS A TRUE STORY. It may be your story, but certainly it is your neighbor's story. You may find your own face here, and it may anger you. I hope so. Anger is a cleansing agent.
The most desperate need of men today is not a new vaccine for any disease, or a new religion, or a new "way of life." Man does not need to go to the moon or other solar systems. He does not require bigger and better bombs and missiles. He will not die if he does not get "better housing" or more vitamins. He will not expire of frustration if he is unable to buy the brightest and newest gadgets, or if all his children cannot go to college. His basic needs are few, and it takes little to acquire them, in spite of the advertisers. He can survive on a small amount of bread and in the meanest shelter. He always did.
His real need, his most terrible need, is for someone to listen to him, not as a "patient," but as a human soul. He needs to tell someone of what he things, of the bewilderment he encounters when he ties to discover why he was born, how he must live and where his destiny lies. The questions he asks of psychiatrists are not the questions in his heart, and the answers he receives are not the answers he needs. He is a sealed vessel, even when under drugs or while heavily drinking. His semantics are not the semantics of anyone else,
not even the semantics of a psychiatrist.
Our pastors would listen--if we gave them the time to listen to us. But we have burdened them with tasks which should be our own. We have demanded not only that they be our shepherds but that they take our trivialities, our social aspirations, the "fun" of our children, on their weary backs. We have demanded that they be expert businessmen, politicians, accountants, playmates, community directors, "good fellows." judges, lawyers, and settlers o local quarrels. We have given them little time for listening, and we do not listen to them, either.
We must offer them concrete help and assume our own responsibilities,. We forget that they are men also, frequently very tired, always unappreciated, sometimes disheartened, quite often appalled, worried, anxious, lonely, grieved. They are not supermen, without human agony and human longing. Heedlessly, we neglect them--unless we wish them to serve us in material ways, when their ways should be exclusively God's. We demand of them what we would not dare to demand of anyone else, even ourselves. We give them no time to listen, when to have someone listen, without hurry, without the click of a clock, is the direct need of our spirits.
Until we free our shepherds from our insistence that they be our servants, let us remember that there is someone who listens. He is available to all of us, all of the time, all of our lives. The Listener.
We have only to talk to him. Now. Today. Tonight. He understands our language, our semantics, our terrors, our secrets, our sins, our crimes, our sorrow. He will not consider you sentimental if you speak fondly of the past, if you are old. He will not turn you away if you are a liar, a thief, a murderer, a hypocrite, a betrayer. He will listen to you. He will not be impatient if you become maudlin, or cry in self-pity, or if you are a coward or a fool. He has listened to people like this all his life. He will continue to listen.
While he listens, you will find your own problems solved.
Will he speak to you, also?
Who knows? Perhaps.
Surely, if you ask him.
If you listen, too
.
Taylor Caldwell