For the contemplative life to take root in your consciousness you begin by accepting the world in which you find yourself. A world not of your making, not of your design and, perhaps, not to your liking. No matter. This is where you are at this moment in infinity. This is where you need to start to change, not the world but your idea of the world. In all this time since the pairs of opposites drove man from The Garden, man has been making up his own beliefs based on the illusion of his senses and the delusions of his mind. This is a dream of power, a mirage with no substance. Even as he strives for greatness in this world of his creation he cannot become immortal. There is no room in the Inn of the Absolute for this man of the world. In order to obtain reservations he must die daily to the man of the flesh and be reborn of The Spirit. It is not a physical death. No, it is a death to the conditioned man. A death to the myth of me. When a myth is revealed it vanishes. It was never here. It didn't go there. There is no there there as Gertrude Stein tells us. Man came into this world from nothing and with nothing. He will leave it that same way. No matter if he is pauper or king. When your time is come there will be no bag to pack because none of this belongs to you. Might as well begin now to prepare. You might consider beginning by accepting the world as the illusion that it is and leaving it alone as much as possible. There is nothing to be done with it. When problems strike, step aside. Do not take up the sword. To do so is to die by the sword. Step aside, the mantra of the man who would free himself from the shackles that bind him to this world. Many years ago I knew a woman whose last name was Godbe. What a wonderful name for this beautiful creature who strove so hard every day to not answer any question, or enter any discussion before she stepped aside and consulted her inner self. Yes, it made for huge gaps in the conversation sometimes. But when her "guide" reached her, she was not speaking as a conditioned reaction, but as a spirit that had actually thought about was was asked or being discussed and answered from a place that was uniquely her own. We can learn to do that if we will step aside. There can be no argument with a man who has stepped aside. Begin with minor events. When fear grabs you, or hurt, or anger. Step aside. Step into your self and listen or even just move on. There is nothing in this world that has power over you that you do not permit. Even in Genesis there is no mention of God creating the world. God created the heavens and the earth. The world was left to man. And man, being the self created myth, began the journey to aggrandizement that we have become. The confusion and collusion of the conditioned mind. Me, myself and mine became the mantra. Religious beliefs the authority. Greed and battle the measures of might. Suffering was the result. And the fall from Grace was complete. So, dear friends, here we are at the crossroads of this journey. Step aside. Get off the Merry-go-round. Step aside. Step into The Self you really are. A Oneness so complete, perfect and pure that has no need of, and indeed is not of "this" world. Complete, whole. Perfect without flaw. Pure without stain. Step aside and become Being.

Infinity has no beginning or end. There is no alpha and omega there. It stretches into and alongside eternity. In our attempt to understand that which is not understandable we create brackets to limit that which is limitless. The void that contains the particle and the wave are an attempt to explain our existence. They are a projection of an idea using form to describe the formless. Ideas are made from nothing and remain nothing until some action becomes an activity that expresses them in some form. But they are not touched by this expression. Just as the sea is not touched by the beliefs of the wave. Wave and sea remain one no matter the appearance to an observer. (Isaiah asks "Wherein is he to be accounted of?") When the wave has finished its journey to the shore, it returns to the sea. Embraced once more by its source. So why do we experience this sense of separation? Who decreed it? Idea. What supports it? Nothing. When did it happen? In the beginning.(In the beginning was the word, the idea. Just the idea.) Where did it occur? On the earth. Why? Because personal sense took root. The tree of good and evil grew the fruit of the pairs of opposites and we are the result of that belief. But it is as false as the belief of the wave. It has a false sense of separation and is a lie. "If I bear witness to myself, my witness is not true." Jesus said that along with "I, of myself, am nothing." Nothing, the basis of everything, remains unmoved and undefiled by the lie. "Nothing shall enter that defileth or maketh a lie." Deprived of our senses we are left with the mind. Here we find thoughts and ideas. But they have no substance. As dreams have no reality yet they contain expressions of ideas. People, places, possessions, beliefs. All false. Where do they go in the light of wakefulness? They vanish because they never were. When Light enters the darken room, where does the darkness go? It vanishes because it never was. Can darkness show The Light its darkness? Not in the presence of The Light! Through Grace we have the ability to let go of this dream we call living, this world of chaos and anger and greed, and return to The Light, the energy that propels our existence. To be enfolded into Its Being like being embraced by someone you love. It is safe there. There are no opposites and no opposition. Love encircles and absorbs you back into infinity. The place before is replaced by the place ahead, stretching endlessly into eternity. Now you are home. There is no more sorrow. No more separation. No self separate and apart. Embraced by The Light you are enfolded in all there is. Is Is. Rejoice. Joy and Peace, Love and Harmony, Purity and Perfection, Beauty and Abundance, Freedom and Grace surround you. The myth of me is laid to rest and I will dwell in the house of Grace forever.

If I let go of my sorrow I will let go of what caused my sorrow and I don't want to lose that which caused my sorrow to be gone. Sorrow has always been a dilemma to me. Why do we feel this deep longing, this woefulness? It is not simply about the loss of someone dearly loved or about
an event that is agony. It is not about aging or life changing as we travel on this infinite journey through eternity. Though all of those may cause sorrow. This sorrow I sometimes feel is an ancient sorrow, coming from a place deep inside my soul. Like a cloud of unknowing. This feeling that hovers above me and within me. A longing so deep it could cause despair, but it does not. It simply lingers beneath the surface and calls out from time to time. The Cloud of Unknowing is the title of a book purported to be written by an English monk is the middle of the 14th century. Written for a young man who was considering a contemplative life. Chapter 44 is titled "How a soul is to destroy all knowing and feeling of its own being." In order to understand better that painful instruction takes some reflection indeed. I take it to mean that the soul is at work dissolving the myth of me and this feeling of separation that creates personal sense. Part 3 of this chapter again lends some light: "All men have reason for sorrow, but most particularly does he have cause for sorrow who knows and feels that he is." Is what? It is indeed sorrowful if he believes he is this entity identity caught in the pairs of opposites, the illusion of the senses and the delusion of the mind. But he is caught only by conditioning and relative reality. Truth always reveals the lie and the lie vanishes. It never was! Its fraudulent claim is a fiction, has no power and cannot stand! When the lie is exposed, the man can know and feel "not only what he is but that he is,[this] man can experience sorrow authentically." And exactly what is the he that he is? Life, I would venture, with one caveat. Life without a subject. The same life as a blade of grass. No more. No less. That is what he is and that is the I am that I am to be. Nothing. Nothing separate and apart from that which IS. And the sense of separation from that Is is the cause of sorrow. This is a "sorrow, when experienced, cleanses the soul.... and it thereby makes the soul capable of receiving that joy that separates a man from the awareness and feeling of his being." Awareness is an experience of the man whose breath is in his nostrils. We rise up, if I be lifted up, from the density into mindlessness, into mindfulness, into awareness. Awareness is the step before full consciousness. And that consciousness is without an object or objective. The sorrow that leads us to Joy is one that knows the emptiness that is the fulfillment of the soul. I and i are 1. There is no other. There is no separation. It is the separation that causes the sorrow. Only by practicing the contemplative life can we achieve reunion with that which we are. Sorrow is a raft that rescues us from this world. Welcome it. It is the ticket home. My sorrow will only be gone when I am one with the sorrow and it is revealed as a lie and vanishes.

The void. It stretches endless into infinity. How can you grasp the idea, the concept of it? Then, into this void, comes a particle, a wave. At least that is what the observer sees. But does it? Is there activity in the void? And who is this observer observing the action? Wherein is he to be accounted for? Cease ye from man [the observer] whose breath is in his nostrils. It is a tale of conditioning. The observer observing itself in a mirror is seeing only an image. One cannot see oneself at all. Our form is only a reflection in the pond, the window, the mirror. Who observes? And how is this observer to be trusted? We are endless expressions of facts that are continuously changing. So how can they be facts when they are not continuously true? The world would still be flat. We appear to live in a world of relative reality. But relative reality is not universal. What is true in North America is not true in India or Africa, or Asia. We are all a reflection of our conditioning! First our family, then our community and schools, society and political affiliation. None of it the true truth. Most of it articulated by belief systems that have no basis is any truth at all. We quote The Bible, The Koran, The Talmud,The Gita,The Tao. But have we read what we quote so knowingly? Have we understood the meaning behind the words? In the beginning was the Word. A word represents an idea. An idea is infinite and never finite until it is brought into expression and then the purity of the idea is lost in definition. Stand ye still and know that I am. I will never leave you, nor forsake you. Never! Not at any time on your infinite journey through eternity. Grace and Joy and Peace and Love and Harmony and Beauty and Abundance and Freedom are your birthright. They are ever present but, in our search for an entity identity we move into the chaos of the world, embrace the pairs of opposites and become immersed in the Adam dream of a world separate and apart. A world of personal sense and an empty sense of separation. Turn ye and live. Be ye transformed. Breath is something different that the breath that is in your nostrils. The perfect, pure Presence is closer than breathing, nearer then hands and feet. That is the start of beginning to know who you are. Breathe in and be still. Breathe in and let go. Be in the moment and enter The Silence. Listen for the still, small voice that speaks within you. Speak, your servant listens. And be still until you hear that voice thunder inside you. You will know it speaks the truth of all truths. When the truth reveals the lie you are free. I, if I bear witness to myself, my witness is not true. Deliver me from the lie.

Breathing in I calm my mind. Breathing out I let go. Breathing in I enter the moment. Breathing out I enter The Silence. Each day this begins my reflection, my contemplation, my meditation. I do it as a mantra until my mind is still and I reach that space where I washes over me and something in me raises into an awareness. Above the density of this world, above mindlessness, above mindfulness and into an awareness that leads to the flow of Consciousness. I dwell there, in that flow for as long a moment as I possibly can. And then start again. I let the mind wander off as it will, always coming back to the moment when I was in the flow of Consciousness. Knowing that I am a point of light within a greater Light. And Thus I stand. I imagine a cube of light with a black cloth covering it with a gazillion small pinprick holes, each representing one of us. But take away the cloth and there you have the pure and perfect Light. We are not separate from that Light. We are one with It! At last I let go and enter therein. Stand ye still and know that I Am. And I am still. Carried along by the flow I enter The Silence and become one with that One. Leaving behind the world. Here, in this now, there is perfection without flaw, purity without stain. The pairs of opposites drop away. There is nothing. Nothing to judge by, no opinion to be held, no belief to bow to. And being empty, I am fulfilled. By Grace, I am fulfilled. I am the I am that I am to be. Now, in that moment. With the equilibrium of equanimity I am still. I am free of the Myth of me, myself and mine. Without desire - all that I have is yours, what could I possible desire? Without attachment - that to which I am attached, I am. Those attachments are not outside the one that we are but part and parcel of It. Without personal sense, I am free from the sense of separation. Oneness fills my Soul. I am still, awaiting the still small voice in The Silence.

When the world is too much with me, my soul screams in the silence. But the silence is still and does not respond. It waits until I can stand still and know that I am. What am I? Who am I? I am Grace wending its way through infinity on this journey through eternity. I am never who I seem to be, but always who I really am. Who is that? I am Life. Life without a subject. Life is the substance of all form. Living is but a byproduct of Life Eternal. A conditioning of the entity causing an entity identity that is but a reflection of the senses. But I am more than senses. Beyond the sense of separation I am beyond any personal sense. Beyond the pairs of opposites that bind me to the world. If I loose myself from the nets of desire, the attachment to personalities, or places or possessions or conditions. Loose myself from judgement, opinion or belief I am free of the myth of me - that false sense that binds me to the world of illusion. This mirage. This dream. The illusion of my senses and the delusion of my mind. All projections are within me. The screen is empty until there is a picture projected upon it. Like a movie. There is no reality there. It is light projected through an instrument that casts its shadow on the blank screen. And I am but an observer. Observing the illusion of someone else. The observer becomes immersed in the false projection and, for the moment, is absorbed into it. But when the lights go up in the theater he returns to himself and is free of the projection. So it is with each of us. This world is but a projection involving our senses and emotions. Free of that we are able to return to the I that I am. But we do not. Alas, we are captured and conditioned by the projection and enslaved to it rather than to who we really are. Break the chains that bind you to this false image and you will see the wonder of an overshadowing presence that draws you home. The Light that dispels the darkness. There was nothing. I of my self am nothing. But in that emptiness is the space for every possibility. Life is the substance. Life, by grace, will lead you to your Self. And you will discover in the depths of infinite eternity the I that I am. I am the I am That I am To Be. Now, in this very moment.

This is This because That is That, the Buddhist awareness of the Christian idea of the Pairs of Opposites. It exposes the reality that we can only have judgement, opinion and belief because there is something "other" with which to compare it. The rich girl is only That because of the poor waif - This. Good exists because of an opinion about Bad. Heaven exists because of the belief in Hell. Without this awareness of something "other" we have no guide lines to form our judgments. So we come to live in the confusion and the collusion of the conditioned mind. At the highest level there is Consciousness without an object or objective. In our human condition we step that down to awareness. We become aware of something outside our true Self. We become observers. From there we develop mindfulness of those things and begin our journey into personal self and a sense of separation begins to overtake us. From the Upanishads: The one Self within all beings becomes different, according to what It enters, and exists also without.The pairs of opposites are made up and depend on each other for survival. Remove the covering, as Fra Giovanni tells us, and you will find beneath it a Living Splendor woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Be there in that Silence. Be still and know that I am. I am never who I seem to be, but always who I really am. Who am I? I am infinite eternity. I am Stillness. I am Joy and Peace. Not as the world giveth. I am Love and Harmony. Also not as the world giveth. I am pure beauty without judgement. I am abundance without greed. I am perfect Freedom. I am Grace.