Rock 'n Roll

 

Step back.
Step back.

Back from the motivations to act. 

From the identification with the 
swirling thoughts 
and lingering feelings
passing by like buses and cars in
front of our window.

Back from everything 
which defines us as a person. 

Step back from everything which tells us 
that we are limited and separate.

Step back just a little while 
as if it is a game we play.



When we came into the world, we played
the game of being the little child
because we so much needed to please.
 Our survival depended on it.
 


 After playing the game of being this little girl or boy
for some time we forgot that it was just a game,  
because no one told us otherwise.

And with this forgetting we lost home, 
not knowing any more who we truly are. 

Instead, we identified with this pseudo-identity
always sensing something is not quite right,
something is missing,
something is wrong.

And as everyone else, 
we started to look
somewhere else for completion.
Relationships,  work,  money,  enlightenment, 
cats and dogs, children, cigarettes, 
sex and drugs and rock and roll.

Anything at all to fill up the hole 
created by this misidentification.


We lost sight of the simple fact of being.

Unconditionally present.

Always here and now.

And more intimate than our own breath.


Step back. 

And see what is always present already..

 

 

Calamity

Opening up to
what is
what you are

right here
right now,
the seeking stops, 

the search ends.

From a personal point of view a calamity. 

 
An existence where there are no more goals
no more ideas and ideals to go after.
The center of the universe,
the idea of being a person collapses. 

 
And everything which made sense before
is now seen to be empty, meaningless.

But when existence is pulled free
from this limited point of view,
reality reveals itself to itself. 

 
And Life becomes a wondrous happening.
A mysterious unknown
where everything is full of meaning.

 
Fullness itself without explanations.

 
The immediacy of perceiving what Is.

 
The beauty.

 
The ear-splitting silence.

 
The peace that passeth all understanding 

 
The total acceptance of what Is.

 
Choicelessly aware

 

 

The conversation

The conversation

this morning where the soft sand gave way

when my bare foot came down,

the dewdrops from the grass

trickle down the ankle,

and the sound of small twigs

break on the forest floor.

The conversation

yesterday at acro yoga

with the weight and the delicate finding of ease

as one balances in midair upside down

on some other body’s feet.

Not knowing anymore where one body starts

and the other begins.

Only sensations of stretching, balancing

of weight and movement are perceived.

The world seen from unusual angles.

The conversation

at all times ongoing

as we move and see,

hear and smell,

taste and touch,

all and everything that appears

in our field of perceptions.

A fullness and aliveness always here

but rarely noticed in its richness and intensity

as most of our attention stays captivated

by the belief in the reference point we call me.

While at each moment

a million things are going on,

the narration of keeping this me aliveness

hijacks the direct perceptions.

The Aliveness without filters.

 

 

"Here I AM"

As awareness is All,

the ultimate subject,

what All is,

what we all Are,

so everything

we meet is IT.

All the contacts with the world

is only ever the Beloved meeting us.

 

Every face, smell, colour, sound, sensation.

 

The smiling kid looking up,

the grumpy sales man in the shop,

the embrace of our lover,

the throes of our illness.

No getting away from IT.

 

The Beloved pursues us relentlessly.

 

Every breath we take is only ever

This which is touching us

with Itself.

 

The boredom, the depression,

the delight and the joy.

 

Through every contact IT is calling

out to us:

 

"HERE I AM"

 

 

Unentangling

 

If the the penny has dropped,

and one knows oneself to be That 

which is limitless....

and one does not hang on to concepts 

how nonduality or spirituality has to look like;

one enters a journey of unentanglement.

Personal encumberments 

gathered over a lifetime come out of hiding.

 

Contractions stored in the body as a child are eased out. 

 

Memories one did not know were there, resurface.

 

At its own time and momentum this process unfolds.

There is no initiative or intention

There is no one who wants it to go one way or the other.

 

And then without effort it is over.

This particular knot has been untied.

After such a episode I notice 

there is a deepening in the way I perceive myself and the world.

 

Sinking more into the body.

There is more clarity in the perception.

This process is going on since some years.

It started in India and continued after I remigrated to Holland.

There was much to uncover coming back to my own country,

my roots and my family.

Lots of things I had not have to deal with 

in the 35 years I was in India.

National and cultural habits,

Childhood issues. 

 

Sticky at times,

Painful at times.

 

Revealing more freedom

And there is no end to this journey

More space to be the One who I AM

On Death and Dying

It is always the ever present
ever pregnant 
all possibilities containing 
Life.

And death is but another way of saying that an appearance is changing shape. 

A tree in autumn is loosing its leaves.
Each leaf, in summer alive and giving life to the tree,
withers and disintegrates, 
its elements becoming nutrition for the roots. 

The end of Spring is the start for Summer. 

A caterpillars demise is the birth of a butterfly


Death and dying have been close lately.
My mother, clients, Leo Hartong
and family of a dear friend.

Seeing all the intricate changes 
when life slowly withdraws from a body:

The change of color, 
The body emaciated because of its decision not to eat.
The 'death mask' with the pointed nose and the tight skin over the cheekbones making its entry.
The plucking of the hands in the air.
The irregular heartbeat, with long intervals.
The person preparing to move to another realm of perception by asking where it should go, what is the way?
And then the last breath with a surrender and a relaxation.
The being has moved on.
The empty shell of the body left behind.


Death is only there for the ones who stay behind
when they are convinced that life stops when the body stops.

But it is an open door for the one who goes.

For me my mother is not dead, she is merely not in her body.
She is discovering things new where she is now.
And I look forward to meet her again.

The changes which happened in my body after she left
are seen and acknowledged.
Are felt and lived through intimately.

Because of my mother my existence on earth has been a welcoming and loving one. 
Through her I have naturally received a trust and confidence.
Through her simple and generous heart I inherited much of her
open and honest way of looking at life.

And when she was not physically in her body anymore 
I felt the loss viscerally. 
That specific support on what my body/being had relied on for its existence was not there anymore.

I had not been aware that it was there,
because it had never not been there. 
And by its absence I realized its significance.

For days and weeks this hole was felt. 
As if a a ground which always was firmly under my feet suddenly was not so solid anymore. 
Sensations were felt of hollowness, emptiness, heaviness.
Which when given words are: 'depression, loosing the will to live'. 

But when the words and stories are not there they are sensations in the body which indicate the severing of the energetic connection which had always been between my mother and me.

It is a natural and normal process. 

After an upheaval things have to find their place again.
Like a wound in a body which has to heal.
Painful and unpleasant at times.
Intimately felt.

Meanwhile I feel my mother at times,
and talk with her when I do.





 

A paradox?

In truth there is only One looking out of everyone's eyes.
All is made out of the one substance, consciousness.

And in truth each viewpoint is unique, individual, 
authentically only yours, 
as there is only one of them. 

There is only you looking out of your eyes.


Two in One.
There is no contradiction
and no paradox either 
if it can be seen as what is happening.

To deny one is being necessarily outside the Truth.

The process to be able to see
ever more clearly all that is involved 
in the experience called Living.

An unending process which does not stop.

Ever

( All though one can stagnate for a while at a station )

Even nonduality, self realization are but stops on the way.

Unsought

The inclusive aspect of awakeness
is ongoing and unstoppable
when surrender has occurred. 

You can not make this happen,
but one gives one's consent to it.

This call to give oneself and all that comes up
is unsought, spontaneous 
and answers something
which is at the same time
universal and intimately personal.

If you find yourself here you will notice 
that all concepts, systems, frameworks fail.

There is only the process happening. 

There are no two things.

Just this happening.

Some questions...

Was there ever a time that you were not here?

Do you have a memory of your absence?
 

Is it possible to live without concepts?

Even the Nondual concepts?

No concepts at all?

Can we do away with the frameworks we have become so
accustomed to?


The bagage we have picked up on the way.


Any idea which has not been investigated 
and experienced by ourselves
is second hand information 
taken on because someone else has said so.


Is it possible to live without concepts?
Truly alive here and now to what is happening?
Without referencing it to the mind?

?
 

Somewhere

As new born babies
we are noticing everything directly,
as there is not yet a fixed position.

It is one fluid field of knowing.

Until we are conditioned, 
through upbringing and education,
from morning to night,
that what we are is limited to the body.  
This is our identity.

And as nobody has confirmed us in our perception
of the ever present nature
of our being, 
we believe the lie and
settle for a fake reality.

Somewhere we know we are
magnificent, 
beautiful and divine.

But we are brainwashed not to brag,
not to show ourselves
and to hide.

Somewhere we know we are
timeless, ageless and perfect.

But we are never confirmed
in this intuitive knowing and thus
slide into inferiority complexes
because our ever changing
appearance does not match the
fashion models of this moment.

Somewhere we know we are
ever present and all knowing;
our direct perceptions revealing
the truth of existence as it is.

But we get caught up in the
story of separation, of human 'doings.'
Entering the stream of time.
Of past and future.
And end up living in a conceptual framework
where things are only known by its labels.

Somewhere we already know we are
whole and complete.

That is why this message
of non separation is resonating with many.

It is already telling us
what we know to be true.

A place we never left.

The direct knowing of this moment.