Om Namah Shivaya - response

"Thanks for your thorough response to my question about renunciation! Amen. I'm in total accord. Yay to renouncing chasing and grasping! To renouncing all the beliefs and stories that reinforce the mistaken beliefs of duality and separation.

"To me there is an inherent danger in conventional renunciation - in declaring renunciation of anything deemed not 'spiritual,' even one's own beliefs and thoughts, there is a subtle duality set up in the mind, a polarity which is the very seed of inner war and non-acceptance, non-freedom. It also strengthens the sense of an 'I' doing the renouncing, which effectively takes us further from the real goal of recognizing that no one is there in the first place, that no one ever awakens. If anything, as I've noticed, we awaken to the fact of our fundamental lack of individuality, to the basic truth that we only exist as people in our minds, the absolute non-existence of an 'I', and that Awakening is really all there is anyway - no one awakens, the mind just finally gets that nothing is not God and nothing is personal (i.e. separate). That really blew my mind when I first saw that God isn't spiritual. God IS, and that's all you can say (and even that's finally meaningless). All 'doing' in the name of enlightenment ultimately might bring some nifty, flashy experiences, but in the end, all that is required is simply closely watching and noticing. Awareness itself does everything in its mysterious potent and paradoxical 'action by inaction.' For me, letting go into that recognition is pure not-knowing, pure surrender and total trust and freedom. And that recognition comes and goes - which is also perfectly fine - part of the whole mysterious play. Don't you think?

"A joy to be in this dance with you!"

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(thanks to my dear friend Steve for this gracious response :-)

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti!

Om Namah Shivaya

(A response to a friend, following an ongoing discussion of this sense of "renunciation" I've felt since India...)

You asked me what I’m renouncing, and my mind (after its initial period of emptiness) was a flood... But the simple answer is – everything. But not every thing, rather, every mental construct of things. ...All the “shoulds” that keep me from knowing pure-beingness. All the fears and limitations that have kept me from believing in life, in beauty, in the perfect blessedness and deservedness of being-here on this planet. Everything that I’ve “learned” over the years that has tried to direct me away from pure innocence. Anything that keeps me from knowing the essence of true love. And especially the grasping mind. Each time I feel a thought painfully reaching out trying to control something, get something, or achieve something, I allow it to retract into the heart of pure love. I am left wretchedly empty yet peacefully full – no achieving – yet totally at peace.

At this point it feels I am to the bare bones – all that’s left is tender innocence, if even that – perhaps that’s the last thread. Empty. I feel “Om Namah Shivaya” - all attachment dissolving... ...and it’s fine. Because I trust. I trust life, and I trust that life beyond life, that perfect truth that is so much greater than “I.”

And I’ve seen how I’ve suffered – chasing after this want, this fulfillment, this thing I think I “need”... And I realize that I already have everything. I am so entirely blessed, in spite of myself :-) And so I give in, I let go to this blessing, because it is the only thing that is alive – it is life. It’s the pure grace of Spirit. It’s the only thing I can truly receive. It is Peace. And whether it gives or takes from the outward-show of my life is irrelevant – if I am truly in the grace of spirit, it is perfect either way. And so the renunciation is simply surrender. It is a stopping, at the same time as nothing stops, the world keeps spinning, my actions never cease, I keep living...

All I know is it is a great relief. Inwardly I relax, even as I keep moving...