On a hike this morning, my heart was aching, longing, crying, to experience God and I had the thought full of feeling, "I am so tired of being "me"". The ludicrousness of this statement puzzled me leading to the next question. "Who is tired of being "me"?" Awareness just opened and for a moment it was clear that angelina/me doesn't have a thing to do with it...doesn't need to get enlightened or become better, more spiritual or anything. She doesn't need to save anything or anyone. In fact it was like seeing angelina as a pin point in the expanse of what I am. It really is just a case of mistaken identity isn't it? That which I am...truth...whatever feeble word I use to describe it...doesn't need "my" help. Of course "me" wanted to hold onto the "experience" and it was gone. In its wake it was abundantly clear that "me" "angelina" isn't going to "wake up" or get enlightened. It is a waking "from" but the wakefulness/truth/consciousness is always present. Always. It doesn't matter what angelina is doing. It is here, now, even if I can't feel it.
When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment. It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float. It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within. It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains. Eyes closed. Eyes opened. A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being. It takes courage.
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Richard Sylvester