The Very Bearable Lightness of Being

“Being must be felt. It can’t be thought.” Eckhart Tolle

“The whole effort of the spiritual process is to break the boundaries you have drawn for yourself and experience the immensity that you are. The aim is to unshackle yourself from the limited identity you have forged, as a result of your own ignorance, and live the way the Creator made you — utterly blissful and infinitely responsible.” Sadhguru, “Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy”

A SEVENTH SUMMER MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Birdsong wakens me from deep, restful sleep.

Early morning sun teases its way through slanted blinds, lingering on my closed lids.

I open my eyes to a golden world. Tiny, flashing particles dance in the air, akin to dust motes captured in sunbeams.

I have no thought. I am. My body arises voluntarily and I feel myself moving with a liquid, floating sensation through streams of flashing gold, down the hall and into the kitchen.

I open the cupboard and gaze at bowls. Hands reach out to embrace my favorite green one. Cupping is like a sacred vessel, I reach for a box of cereal, open the refrigerator, and select milk.

Rice Krispies snap, crackle, pop as I pour it into the center of puffed grains. I stop, listening rapturously to their song, before gliding onward and out the door to the front yard.

I sit down on the porch step. Still cradling my singing bowl, I watch robins showing me how morning works. Hop, hop hop, listen and wait, there’s the worm! I’m a silent observer without an I.

I breathe in Golden, Glimmering, Nectar. It courses a path through my body down to my small, bare feet planted on the earth. I am connected to all that is. The pulse of life. The heartbeat of our planet. We are one, no separation.

I feel a smile. I have no idea how it arrived nor do I care. Thought has been replaced with sensation.

Time has stopped. My Krispies are sodden, no longer popping their dryness away.

Flowers turn their face to the rising sun and so do I. Together, we celebrate Being in this moment of Divine perfection.

I’ve entered the bliss of pure being, passport-free. A realm where children pay no toll.

My body reacts intuitively and instinctively with a profound flush of joy in this alignment of soul and spirit. It exists to respond, my trusty barometer along the journey. Joy is replaced by peace.

I am dwelling in the gap between thoughts. The territory I will develop a yearning for, a respite from the divided world adulting dishes out.

It will take me many years to realize I’ve always been there. It’s a home base for everyone.

Suddenly, my shoulder is nudged when an older brother throws open the screen door, brushing past me on his way outside.

Whoosh. Gone are the Glimmers. He hops off the stoop and pivots to face me.

“You're sitting right in the middle of the step! Move over or get outta the way! Why are you wearing pajamas outside? You’re such a weirdo!”

I’m slam-dunked back into a familiar scenario. One of polarity and striking contrasts. Don’t wear your jammies outside, put on your clothes. Pretend to be normal, whatever that is. It cascades in a mighty river of endless thought, impossible to the dam.

I stare at my brother, the source of this confusing and unbearable shift back to a flatter reality. Gone is the Shimmering, Glimmering state of Being I will enter and exit throughout my life.

Where was I? Where am I now? Take me back!

My wait was not long. Veils fluttered several times that seventh summer. One other reveal as lasting as the first. Smaller, fleeting shifts, steadily reverberating in the background. Glimmers! Clap, clap. Gone.

I thought dimensional shifts were a regular part of life and happened to everyone. I still believe that. We haven’t been taught to recognize these offerings of expansion.

What is Presence? Being in the Now?

“Presence dwells in the ‘spiritual heart’ as yogic sage Ram Dass calls it; within the ‘true self’ as Christian contemplative Thomas Merton explained it. Indeed, it is the journey of a lifetime to empty oneself, to eliminate one’s own small idea of what someone should believe or how they should live; to bear loving witness to the wonder and Mystery of an individual’s spiritual formation and unfoldment.” Dr. Janice L. Lundy Spiritual Guidance Training Institute

For some of us, it takes a disease, trauma, or unexpected event to de-crystallize our deeply embedded brain entrainments. Steady habits need to be switched out.

Society conditions us to accept a limited bandwidth as a preferable, safer option. Those able to function well within its markers are rewarded with approval.

Maxims are thrown about to justify keeping one’s nose to the agreed grindstone. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Life isn’t a bowl of cherries. I paid the price, what makes you think you’re an exception?”

There is truth in these statements. We have to adapt, sustain ourselves and others, and create a base of operation to survive.

Unfortunately, however, we aren’t taught how to maintain states of wonder and how to keep our minds open. Young children exist in Being until they are given boundaries. It’s our innate state and where Presence lies.

The ‘glimmerings’ of my seventh summer had their way with me. They appeared spontaneously, temporarily transforming my world. Only to zip off, no matter how I longed to hold them.

Without exception, they happened in Nature. I came to understand Light and Nature were the same. Here for all.

We have an instinctive draw toward the play of Light. The sunset or sunrise setting clouds aflame, reflecting brilliant colors onto bodies of water.

Rainbows pop up, proof of our limited spectrums.

In and out, the Glimmers came and went.

School started. The glimmers faded.

Consciousness is a broad topic and can be a contentious one as well. How does one meditate? Is it necessary to meditate? How do we reach the gap between our thoughts? Can you strive for it or does that defeat the purpose?

How do we enter a state of communion with all existence? What is a holy state? The descriptions vary widely through personal interpretation. There is no master recipe to follow.

I laughed when reading Eckhart Tolle’s book ‘The Power of Now”. I resonated with his description of his first spontaneous, direct experience of Being.

He ended up spending a couple of years sitting on park benches, simply observing perfection unfolding in the everyday world. He was completely mystified on how to navigate life through the lens of multi-dimensional perception.

His previous deep depression had proved to be an empty vessel, steering him nowhere. It was his personal dark night, however, which cracked his code and became the catalyst, allowing Light to shine through.

We need rattlings of our cages, shake-ups out of comfort zones. A power washing away of the numbness and lethargy when accepting less because others do.

Lacking a mentor, I had to discover how to activate Light. As a kid, it was often a process of cancellation. Learning what not to do.

One way I did this was by paying close attention to messages from my body and honoring them. Grasping emotional anatomy was a rapid path tool on my journey.

Our guts always know. There are many more internal messages sent from our enteric, gut-brain than from our cranial brains. They move at the speed of the biophoton Light flashing through our bodies. Honing the skill of listening to their messages saved my life on two occasions.

Each time I rose beyond ego, into the field of compassion and empathy, the Glimmers appeared. They became a rewarding pat on the back from unseen guides. I was motivated to cultivate them.

Did this mean I functioned in a continually enhanced state? Absolutely not. I was presented with the high road at every turn and sometimes I chose to explore elsewhere.

At times it seemed like I had to get down and dirty. Judge, criticize, vent my anger and outrage. Spit on the evildoers in humanity. The light had been generous with me and yet, I took tango classes with my Shadow. How did it feel to be less than who I was? Like a punch in my gut, that’s how.

I knew I was on track when feeling an overall expansion of well-being, even when I couldn’t see the Glimmers. This opening became a notice of magic on the way.

Light can not be pigeonholed in a religion or faith. It is our Being, waiting for us to recognize it.

Light is the gap between thoughts, what the Dalai Lama describes as “The Clear Light of Mind” and which I would phrase “The Clear Light of Our Heart.”

When we choose to be less than we are, our Light dulls in a warning. Continue dampening and tamping down and we will feel the consequences. If we ignore it long enough, events will arrive, blasting us forward in an effort to shift us to a new outlook.

A dis-ease may erupt in our system, blocking out our very life force. The origin of all dis-ease is an imbalance in our systems. It can bring us to our knees if we ignore it.

Awakening to our natural state is a different process for each one of us. Every human is born with a unique energetic signature and arrives with a mission. There are woke beings among us, demonstrating full potential. Teachers and lessons arrive and depart. Our hearts remain constant.

No one can hand us the keys to our inner sanctum. Guides come along when we are ready. They show up in many forms to test your alertness and willingness. Discarding your notions of how they look and act will serve you.

If you believe in yourself, then believe in your Light. No matter how many fingers are pointing the way, our job is to open our own minds, then activate and integrate our heart’s decree.

Just as plants turn their faces to the Sun, we must attune our hearts to the Light we are.

Once we set out on the Glimmer road, our minds take a back seat more often and our hearts open wider. I can only speak from my own experience and know this to be true for myself.

Many of us are suffering needlessly from a lack of meaning. Releasing your Light will reveal your purpose in life.

Can you hear them knocking, those Glimmers and Shimmers at the door?