I HAVE NOWHERE TO GO
I have nowhere to go and nothing to be. I don’t need to be somebody. Because of this, I am amazed by what I see. I have discovered that I love to walk. In my walking excursions, I have discovered that every footstep flows in wonder.
With every footstep, I explore myself. I am in all, and all is in me. And even this is not it either. I am beyond all definitions, all measurements, and all labels. I am at home within myself. No matter where I am, I know I am okay, whole, alive, and free. Here, I live simply. Yet, I am not “trying” to be simple. It is because I am no longer playing in the drama our society tells us to play.
In simplicity, I am aware. In that unabiding awareness, all horizons open, and duality is no more.
In the fire of awareness, I see that sorrow is not innate within anything wild, and like all species, we are not full of sin but rather perfect in who we are. Yet, why are most people suffering and believing that they are not okay? The Buddha looked into the heart of our society and saw suffering everywhere. Yet, this culture was built on the narration of separation. This belief is what has fostered fear, violence, and suffering. Unrelenting war, greed, and suffering are spawned from the conditioned belief of separation. Essentially this belief has put this culture at war with the world. From the moment we are born, this belief is taught to us.
If we pause, question, and look around us, we would see that everything is connected and immersed in an immeasurable Wholeness rather than a Universe of Separation. Inherent in us is Wholeness. Living in Wholeness, we are free, connected, and intensely alive; clarity flows through our senses. I see that even when I struggle, all is alright, and I can now watch my thoughts and feelings and let go.
Life is wonderful. Even when as a child, as I became clouded and weighted down by the darkness of my conditioning, the light of wonder kept pushing through my anxieties and fears, somehow lighting my way, allowing me to see that there was something underneath my thinking even if consciously I was unaware of it. After many years, wonder made me stop and listen, helping me break free of my societal conditioning and sorrow. As Albert Schweitzer shared, “Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.”
Wonder is in all moments. We live in an immeasurable, infinite Wholeness. How can there not be wonder in all the forms that Wholeness expresses? Wonder allows one to observe any distortion of the mind and let go. Wonder lets control fall away, and presence emerges. Wonder clears the mind of thought distortion and brings the fullness of awareness to flow through. In this wonder, the world shimmers and flows in all ways.
I have seen wonder flow out of the dazzling radiance of a dragonfly darting and hunting through reeds and cattails. I have seen wonder flow in the kaleidoscopic texturing of the arching daytime sky. One can see wonder flow in the dynamic interplay of life and death, a circle with no end. Wonder flows in the pallet of colors erupting upon the mountains and plains. Wonder flows in the nuances and slithering meanderings of rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans. I have seen the magic of the Aurora Borealis and the indescribable immensity of the Grand Canyon and ventured deep into the heart of mountains with granite peaks that slice into the sky. Within the rubbery touch of milkweed flowers is such curiosity. I have looked into the eyes of many of our Earth’s inhabitants, and in all these species, I see wonder and an innate immeasurable quality. I see one’s infinite beauty within the eyes of every being I meet.
I see that even if I never left my home in Waterbury, Vermont, I could voyage just as far as if I traveled across the Universe. In every step and every breath within the presence of wholeness, I see wonder, the beauty of change, life, and death, and the flow that moves through all. Here I experience love.
I truly don’t need anything. In Wholeness, I live and wonder; joy and love flow free. Here, there is nothing to control, own or divide. Here, in the flow, one sees nothing random and that all events are linked together through infinity.
I have no enemies, for duality doesn’t exist. Right and wrong, good and bad, don’t exist, for there is no other. All the issues that we see in our culture are seen as silly, for they all stem from an illusionary belief and propaganda in order to keep us fighting against one another so that the system can keep going. The system is fueled by suffering, fear, indifference, and hate.
From Wholeness flows love. Because love is whole, love doesn’t crave, does not force, and does not need anything. Love is the binding force of all that is. Love doesn’t conform and is vulnerable. Love doesn’t try and hide or manipulate. Love isn’t about manifesting or gaining. Love is.
The only thing that can heal the spirit, the animus of life, is to confront the illusion of our enculturated self, for by letting go of the false, we will enter into truth. There is no road to get there. It is in bringing the light of awareness into thought and seeing thought in full clarity. Here, thoughts are nothing more than conditioned phantoms that hold nothing except the power we give to them. Walking up to truth isn’t just a meditation in the morning but in all moments. Here, with the light of awareness, one’s psychological fear and ignorance die away, and love and wholeness are entered. In this pathless land of love is present.
If we stopped rushing and listened in complete openness, letting our minds quiet and still, we would see that we are not separate, that we are whole, and that we need not fit into our dysfunctional society. Unawake in our movements, we are contributing to dysfunction and decisiveness. Stopping, a stillness opens up. In stillness, all illusions slip away; wholeness is.
Authenticity happens when we are open. When not stuck in our ego, when not worried about the past or future, when we stop caring what other people think, we release our conditioning. When we are open with wonder, learning happens. In this, we know that the conditioning implanted by a fundamentally defective culture is the problem, not us inherently, which lets us know that we can rediscover who we truly are. It is not our nature that is dysfunctional, but our culture. Yet, identifying with our culture, we act out the dysfunction.
Wholeness can never be built by thought and can not be experienced through the lens of the past or projections of the future. Reality lies in presence. All things melt away in the fire of awareness.
We are born whole with an immeasurable potential to love. As adults, we could focus on trusting this innate wealth within each child and helping them meet their potential. Can you imagine how beautiful it could be if our communities would help each child realize this potential? Imagine how we would treat each other and all of life.
If we lived in Wholeness and did not see division, there would be no hierarchy, racism, sexism, war, and destructiveness to the environment. Joy, togetherness, and equanimity would blossom. Love would flow through us in all our relationships. We would be interconnected with all life.
Our dreaming consists of how we identify ourselves, the conditioning we hold onto, and our worries about the past and ideas of the future. Let go of thought and be in the silent flow. If we can observe openly without thought, we would see that all the problems and sorrow are not dreamed up by a God but rather by us collectively. In the quiet of our minds, we will discover who one is. Here is where the right action blossoms.
We can live in Wholeness and health within ourselves and the world around us. We can live in love and joy. In Wholeness, we would see the destructiveness of factory farming, industrialized fishing, destroying ecosystems, and not wanting to participate in killing innumerable species or imprisoning animals and stopping buying into those practices.
Inherently is a want to love, do good, live authentically, and live a life of wonder. We come into the world with this need. We have the capacity already accessible if we are all given the guidance and trust to foster this. We can’t help but be in presence, in wholeness. However, unless recognized, all of our past floods like clouds into the light of presence and distorts what is. The unconscious is simply the unrecognized aspect of this distortion. Our worries, our hurts, and our insecurities, unless resolved, circulate as thoughts and feelings within the scope of presence and lead one to project this upon the field of reality. This is Maya. Illusion. Awareness is seeing thoughts without personalization. Instead of projection, one is imbued with the fire of awareness. In awareness, one incinerates every thought, belief, and image until all that is left is an immeasurable quiet. Here one enters the source, the immeasurable Wholeness of all that is beyond anything we could ever imagine.
This is meditation. This is not a 20-minute closing one’s eyes meditation and focusing on your breath. This brings awareness into every aspect of one’s life.
One may say that Wholeness doesn’t exist, and if you haven’t directly experienced this, I would say you are right. And that is the thing; it is not the words, it is not the pointers, it is in surrendering, deeply listening, and burning down all walls with the blaze of awareness, where presence is. Letting go into our inherent nature, rich in our connection to one another, unjust systemic laws are no longer needed, and we are truly awake to life. This is where the dreaming (ignorance) ends.
We can let go of the tiller of control. Suppose we can awaken or at least begin to create a healthy dream. In that case, we as teachers, parents, friends, and neighbors can begin to see our children differently and thereby open all of us to the human potential of health, goodness, our connection to all of life, each other, and the wholeness that lies within all.
In listening, one would see that all flora and fauna flow together undivided and are included in ecology’s grand symphony — diversity in wholeness. Everything dances in a wondrous energetic flow woven together in a balance of life and death, creation and destruction. There are no designated areas, arbitrary artificial lines of politics, or controlled manipulations in the wilderness. There is no chaos in the wilderness but a flowing order, free and engaged. The wilderness is poetry dancing as an expression of wholeness.
Rather than separation, the cosmos is one of infinite relations. Whether we know it or not, we are directly experiencing Wholeness and, therefore, oneself. This is communion, for then we perceive that Wholeness is oneself. In all things, rock, soil, insects, trees, humans, the moon, stars, and black holes are all expressions of Wholeness. We are in Wholeness’s presence wherever we are.
In each of us is Wholeness — another word for that is God. As Joseph Campbell shared, God is simply a word representing what can’t be measured or expressed. God is beyond conception, beyond measurement, beyond description, beyond identity. God is neither male nor female, is non-dualistic, and contains all in its embrace. God is Wholeness, an infinite indescribable, beyond knowing and lies as oneself. Living with this understanding, we interact with all in love. Living this way, we live in health, integrity, and balance. This is how we model the world through our authentic actions.
We are not flawed as a human species. Inherently, we are whole, free, and full of wonder and love. Culture and community can either help bring that out in people, or it shall try and enslave the very best of ourselves…………….
