In the Viewing Car, Feeling Light and Happy

I actually have not watched Sirius, I have to admit.

I did buy a viewing but my spam filter may have intercepted their instructions. I never was able to get on and will watch it later. I hope everyone else enjoyed it.

What’s happening for me on the inside is much more gripping than what’s happening on the outside.

There’s a steady state of bliss, a steady flow of love here. The constructed self is gone. The sense I have is of a train that’s left the station and leaves the loved ones waving, far, far behind.

And, as when one begins a long trip, there’s a walk through the dining car and a settling into the viewing car, pushing the cushions and looking at our neighbors.

The mountains and lakes whiz by the dome car’s windows and I have a smile on my face.

I thought I had said as much as I wanted to on presence, what Eckhart calls “The Power of Now.” But no. More remains to be said.

Do you notice how we’re mounting steps as we ascend? The first step is constantly cleansing the vasanas from our mind, purifying it, restoring it to its original, pristine nature.

At the same time we have the second step: the invitation to come out from behind our masks, become aware of our acts and poses, listen to ourselves as we spin our stories in praise of the one we love the most! (Wonder who that is?)

I’m reminded that the way I exited that stage was by an act of will very similar to what Swami Saradananda talks about here: “Give up this unreal world of name and form with the overpowering strength of a lion and come out of it.” (1) To exit the mask, as Ibn Arabi says, “takes a state which resembles a feverish crisis.” (2)

Now there’s the opportunity to “enlighten” ourselves – to take ourselves lightly. There’s an incredible lightness of being and a lightness to things. Everything is light and I realize that the drag is part of the constructed self.

Once we’ve comfortably established our independence from our acts and numbers, then there’s sitting in the viewing car and a feeling of universal love that exudes from us. This must have been what Eckhart was pointing to.

So I’m sitting here in the imaginary viewing car, watching the scenery going by, working away steadily but no longer lashing myself, hearing the clickety-clack, clickety-clack of the train-in-my-mind’s-eye. And feeling happy.

What entering this stage has taken is … only everything, as Adyashanti said. And what is it worth? Only everything. While Adya is taking about a state much further down the road than this, still I can say his words even about this stage.

“I gave everything for this.
And still I laughingly wonder:
How could it have been so cheap?” (3)

And his words in description of that stage still resonate with this one:

“Everything [remained] just as it always had been. There was just the lack of any ‘I,’ personal or universal, or the fundamental unconscious belief in any identity or of fixating self in any place. The mind can continue to fixate a subtle identity of self even in universal consciousness. It can be so incredibly easy to miss. …

“Really, in the end, what you end up with is that you don’t know who you are. You end up in the same place you started out. You truly don’t know who you are because it’s impossible to fixate the self anywhere.” (4)

So, here I am in my imaginary viewing car. Having looked at his book, I settle back and get well into it. And everything I read about that stage fits with this except the depth of experience that he acknowledges…. Granted that he feels it much more fully and deeply than I, still I can just barely glimpse and certainly imagine what he’s looking at.

Seen from the old eyes, everything is asleep, a game, a delusion.
But now I am awake. I am the play. I am the game. I am the delusion.
I am the enlightenment I sought, looking everywhere.
Nothing is separate, nothing is alone.
I am all that I see. All that I smell, taste, touch, feel, think and know.
I am awake and this awakeness is the same as Shyakyamuni Buddha’s.

Today the leaf has returned to the root.
I am all name and form and beyond all name and form.
I am Spirit, no longer trapped in a body.
I am free. I am free because I am awake.
So ordinary. Who would have thought ? Who could have guessed?
I am home. I am really home. (5)

I am not home yet. In fact I have only left one home. But I’m travelling to the home he points to.