I’m not much of a poet, but occasionally verses show up. Over a decade ago, I posted this short poem that arose in 1977.
Silence
Silence is the basis of all existence
Complete, Perfect, Absolute.
To let yourself go,
absolutely, completely,
To be silent throughout
your whole self,
being, existence,
Is to be Perfection,
Complete, Fulfilled.
I’d been witnessing for a while then and the silence was often very loud. This is a very Shiva orientation, common to transcendence and awakening. The completion mentioned is a completion unto itself. This is a profound experience, but it’s not actually complete. That can be a trap of Self Realization – feeling complete when it’s not wholeness.
What’s missing? Everything. All expression. Shakti. Some Self-Realized folk (and philosophers) will dismiss the world as an illusion. But as I’ve mentioned before, this is an effect of rajas (the guna or quality of transformation) being dominant.
This is not the highest perspective. Without Shakti, Shiva is asleep. Consciousness is inert, tamas. There is nothing, including self-awareness.
Alertness requires liveliness to become conscious and self-aware. Without liveliness, silence is an unknown void. An absence.
Calm, peaceful silence can be very refreshing after many lives of seeking. But this treasure of silence is just the key to the door. First we discover silence, then we can discover its nature as both silence and aliveness. Then we can discover just how inclusive everything is.
Wholeness, Unity, nonduality, totality; these are all-inclusive. Silence alone is not.
Davidya
Thank you!
In some of your recent posts you talked about the gut release. In my case this even goes down to the bones.
Wherever She is, Shakti knows right from the start that She is ONE with Shiva.
In some versions of the Buddhist depiction of the wheel of life, there is a Buddha in each segment of the samsara to show you the way where to go. Even in hell.
This is very real.
https://personal.carthage.edu/jlochtefeld/buddhism/wheeloflife/kalachakrabig.html
From a certain point of view all suffering just seems to be a love bite of rhe Divine. (I haven’t got a stable version of this perspective yet. Only glimpses. Still working on that 🙂 )
Hi Herwig
Oh yes, there are all kinds of releases and the process transforms everything, including skin and bones. The gut release is just a specific one related to the three-fold structure of ego identification. There can be many gut-related releases.
Right, and Shiva is depicted as having to learn his nature.
Agreed – there is support at every point. It is only for us to allow that for it to arise. (if we’re trying to control, there is no room for help) The ancient texts are much less metaphorical than we may imagine.
Personally, I don’t relate to the Buddhist depictions but thats just this history. They dropped the Vedic pantheon, then gradually restored something similar with new names as this is what was being experienced.
(laughs) yes, it takes time. I still have habits that conflict or occasionally grumble about what’s arising. But mostly, it’s a remarkable adventure.
“…the Buddhist depictions …”
I am not a Buddhist but I often found help in their way of expressing things.
Intellectually and esthetically appealing.
For westerners Buddhism is an easier bridge. They are socially so much better organized than the Hindus nowadays (compare Varanasi and Bodhgaya!)
But I know what you mean. I knew it before I intellectually understood the difference. Something was missing.
Exactly what you have pointed out here.
No need to convince me. I am an Indo-Germanic pagan by nature from childhood on. Without any outer influence except a few books of ancient Greek and Germanic legends. The first time I read or heard the translation of Vedic Hymns, I was impressed by the similarty with the Edda.
The problem in Europe was that our ancient forefathers had gone the other way. They had forgotten about the underlying unity.
I guess that is why the shift towards a radical monotheism happened 2000 years ago.
Now it is hight time that both parts be reunited.
The underlying unity was forgotten the world over. Even in India, where they managed to maintain many of their source texts, the understanding of same was lost. Yoga devolved into harsh exercise and intellects argued interpretation.
Hinduism isn’t really even a thing. It’s a name the British gave to the various Indus sects. Curiously, independent India has kept the term as it unites many culturally. But it also excludes others.
I agree – we are moving back towards unity. But there seems much to be revealed and shed along the way…
Thanks for answering.
“… there seems much to be revealed and shed along the way…”
Yes. Sigh! The collective stuff gives me much more headache than the personal one.
Good night.
Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!
Yes. We don’t have to take it all on though. We’re called to help with those things for which we have experience.
And we’ve made a lot of headway. And the process is accelerating. Not just more waking up but people discovering techniques for mass clearing. I’m far more effective than I used to be, for example, but know the potential is much greater yet.
Shantiii!
Some time back I had a dream and was told this lovely bit about silence. Of course it supported the statements of Guru’s past and present, but being so personal it had the effect of further grounding me in the self. Thanks for the article!
“In the confluence of time, the best way to approach things is through silence!”
Hi Bill
Yes, direct experience brings the teaching alive.
Thanks for commenting.
Thank you for sharing the poem on silence!
“What’s missing? Everything.” 🙂
Yes, once we are Awake it is time to get out of bed!
What is for breakfast? 🙂
Simply by heading fearlessly and innocently into action, we inevitably gain the support of the Divine.
(laughs) Right, Jim. And after Brahman, we consume the world for breakfast. 🙂
I agree with your last point, assuming the person has practices and understanding that support their process. Otherwise, there can be more struggle with the changes.
Yes, the original “All you can eat” diet, and still lose weight! 🙂
Good point, I am missing a “THEN, Simply by…”, showing the dependency of being Awake first. Thank you!
At the moment I feel this shakti and shiva movement like a being on a beach at the sea. When the sea pulls back from the beach there is a great silence. But I already can hear the roaring waves of the shakti approaching the beach.
Beautifully put, Jean. Thanks.
There’s no “THE” way…as you said: circularity…going through silence and stillness…or not 😉
“The Jiva, as has been seen, is the meeting-place of the play of the dual aspect of the Divine, Prakriti and Purusha, and in the higher spiritual consciousness he becomes simultaneously one with both these aspects, and there he takes up and combines all the divine relations created by their interaction. This it is that makes possible the dual attitude.
There is however a possibility of arriving at this result without the passage through the passivity of the mental Purusha, by a more persistently and predominantly kinetic Yoga.”
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga
Hi Uli
I agree – anything is possible. But in the current time, of the many I’ve seen shift, all went through silence.
Most people have to learn to Be before they can tackle a kinetic Yoga as they’re too entangled with the fruit of action. Awakening leads to untangling.
Another example would be to compare the description of awakening in the Yoga Sutra. It describes Kaivalya, singularity. This aspect is not usually recognized until later in the current time.
there is an ancient Yoga – 60.000 years old or more…? – that is a surrendering the fruit of action, letting the Shakti lead (in India it was forgotten?: The Pashupati way: it survived in a milder form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6n3ZTnnwYQ&t=138s) ….I know of an increasing number of modern Westerners that have spontaneously activated without knowing nothing of the ancient lineages like this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWEQOG-VUsI
Peace,
Uli
Yes, in the vast cycles of time, the way is lost and found again repeatedly. Different names and contexts but the same basic understanding in the good stuff.
And yes, as more people wake up, it makes it easier for still more to shift. I’ve seen quite a few awaken with little background. Yet that awakening is an end result that usually unfolds over many lifetimes. So the shift happens outside of any lineages but there has usually been such influences at some point in the journey to turn the attention in the right way.
Few of the ancient lineages have made into modern times cleanly. It takes a linage of the clearly awake to carry it forward or it gets diluted and devolves into philosophy and dogma.
As well, modern minds rarely understand ancient paths, writing them off as primitive. I’ve read a couple of good books on Australia’s early people.
yep, definitely…
“I looked along the horizon and saw a distant gathering of Bushmen. We stopped the truck and I ran toward them. I went up to the oldest men, recognizing those I had seen in my dream. Our arms reached out for one another and we embraced as if it were a homecoming. Immediately the old man, whose name was Mantag, the chief of the village, began to shake. I shook with him. Without words we were already communicating; we were meeting through our bodies, expressing through vibrations what I had traveled across the globe to ‘discuss.’ As we shook, some of the women in the community gathered around us with their children and began singing and clapping their hands to make a vibrant rhythm. That was my first experience of shaking with a Bushman.
. . . My guide, Twele, later explained, “For shamans, the dance helps them feel the power that causes the shaking. For me, I feel my hands getting very hot when I touch others in the dance. When the people sing loudly and I dance, the power comes into my feet. It is the power from the music and the seriousness of the occasion that make me very hot. It comes into my head and I feel it as a kind of steam that makes my head feel larger. A light then comes over the dance. My body also seems to become lighter in weight and I feel like I am floating.”
(Bradford Keeney, Bushman Shaman: Awakening the Spirit through Ecstatic Dance)