Sitting at the end of some kind of journey, like one of those heroines in a kid’s adventure story. She stumbles from one mishap to the next, totally clueless. In the end, it turns out the crazy journey was a quest and she eventually bursts through.
This hasn’t been a journey in space. It has taken time. The odd thing is that the only real movement has been in my mind. Looking back through all those years from this moment, I’m actually back where I started from, but somehow I couldn’t see it then. Now I know, in every fiber of my being that unconditional love is absolutely real, it is the fabric of the entire universe. It is true, it is everywhere and it is now. All doubt is gone, all need to struggle, to seek, to find, grasp, or avoid has drifted away like fog on a sunny morning. Silence, peace, absolute safety and love, every moment.
I wanted to sit and try to remember what I saw before and try to understand how it is that life managed to massage my mind into seeing what it so desperately couldn’t see. From this perspective, I look back through my life and the pull and push of love is so blatantly obvious that I can only wonder at how such a simple reality could appear so complex, troubled and insane. It is obvious that I can’t really see what I used to see. Once the mind opens and sees, it can’t completely choose not to see. I can never really capture the craziness. But it probably doesn’t matter because anyone reading this probably knows only too well the inside of a tortured mind.
I could go back and slog painfully through as much as I can remember, but there doesn’t seem to be much point in that. Everyone knows the feeling of endless struggle, the sense of never knowing enough, being good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, or safe enough. But looking back, I see the thread of sanity, the little cords sent through my tangled mind that pulled my attention to where it needed to go, that led me to try to know more, to seek for solutions when I couldn’t see any. The part of me that did know and reached through to the parts that didn’t – that called all the pieces back into wholeness, where everything is one and it all makes sense.
We live in an amazing time where anything we really need to know is available. Every meaningful endeavor that humanity has ever engaged in has left traces that can be picked up and followed. Books, teachers, art, music, ideas, systems – enough ideas and images to spin any mind. At every moment, there is something calling your attention and awareness, some image or idea seeking entry to your mind. It may be formal, like the schooling we all went through as children, the college education we sought later, the informal self-help we try in desperation when we are in pain. We learn new ways to move, to explore, fine tuning our body’s skills, our mind’s skills, our interpersonal skills, and our ability to make a living.
Forward through this maze appears a random tumble struggling to grasp and hold what we long for, pushing away and avoiding all that we feel holding us back, blocking our way. The world’s absolute confusion, the enormity of the pain and suffering all around us, the never ending examples of the insane choices we make in dealing with each other and the planet, loom daunting and insurmountable.
Noticing the quiet, sane insistence of love in such madness is not easy, but it is the only way. What does it look like when it shows up in tiny tendrils in the midst of confusion? It appears in infinite ways - unique for each of us, pushing, pulling, and then hiding in all the places we don't want to look. We need only invite it in.
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