The dweller in the Heart Cave

Yesterday was as black as they get, and despite everything I tried, I sank deep into the empty darkness of despair. But simply holding on to the passing awareness of the true still heart, somehow I came through.

At the deepest point, I sat in meditation, listening to one of the beautiful guided meditations from Baba Ram Dass on the Be Here Now Network website, Focused on the Buddhist Gate mantra: 

Gate, gate
Gone, gone
Para gate, para sum gate
Gone beyond, gone beyond beyond
Bodhi swahah
To that One, praise!

(https://soundcloud.com/ramdass/the-heart-cave-meditation)

And as I sat, empty of all but the awareness of the breath, it became an ocean of awareness in which I both floated and encompassed - and at the heart of me coalesced an image of my Lord Shiva, dancing the Universe into being and destruction, and HIS face, like that of the Greenman I wear under the skin of my back, became my own: and I knew that even in the depths of my despair, the soul of GOD and my own soul were in fact ONE.

And then, miraculous, but natural, came:

Samadhi 


And the Ageless ‘I’ sat within the bone cave of the skull, and watched the arisings and fallings - colours and lights and sounds upon the walls, to delight and frighten the child self in His arms. And I stood and cast off the old monkey suit, and it was my own Horus arising  on strong Golden Wings - but then I fell deep into sorrow, and it was the true Lucifer within who whispered ‘to rise you must first fall...’ - and I felt a rush of such awareness and WISDOM - and yet it was still only pictures and stories, flickering upon the bone wall: a shadow puppet play of ancient tales retold... And the Old Zen Master rocked back and crinkled his face in heartfelt laughter - and the little boy heard, and laughed with him, knowing the joke - even as he saw an infinity of Fathers and Sons, Gurus and pupils, Masters and slaves stretching upward and backward - back to the infinite unknowable, source and actor, music and notes, Brahma and atman ...

And at the heart of it all, one clear message of HOPE: “it’s alright, this is your Dhamma, you’re on the right path.”

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