silent aware spirit = love

(from my journal, written yesterday)

love is an annihilation. the reality of actual love, the stark truth of it, is absolutely destroying. it will empty out every last drop of you; it will cast you aside into hellfire for the very embrace of itself. it is merciless, it is pitiless, and it will never answer a question on the subject. not one. it loves too deeply for that illusion. it loves too deeply for you to bear, and it will kill you in the process.

love will take all that you thought you were and laugh, asking for still more. it will use you to its own ends and you will be left chasing your tail in doubt if you question for one moment why.

there will be wounds ripped into you which will never heal and they will be the most beauty you have ever known, the most tenderly you have ever been treated.

love will play tricks because you try to meet it with your mind, and you will be looking love right in the face screaming "where? where?" and silently it will smile. you are loved anyway, despite your ignorance.

there is nothing which is not precious to the truth of love, not one thing outside its eternal gaze. it cannot be hoarded, or practiced for, and will remain forever outside of time and space.

love is in constant, silent contemplation of itself and knows no boundary called "inside" or "outside" for it sees itself absolutely everywhere and nowhere in particular. if you try to localize or locate love it will bruise you with illusions of its absence.

you will be loved so much you will be shown you are no lesser than the most brilliant of sunrises, and that you are no greater than the most horrific of men, or the smallest of fleas.

there is nothing which love will balk at ripping from your hands by which to show you it is closer than your very flesh. it is only by love's sweet grace that you will be swept aside and shown your eyes are not your own.

with every attempt to get to a place called love you ignore the truth, that love is all you are of and in, and still you pray, using love itself as a stepladder to ascend nowhere else but here.

you may know love for a moment, and then not know later, and yet you are loved through it all. there is infinite space for you to forget the simplest things because they cannot be learned. you may try to teach yourself meditations or write yourself reminders, but love is too intimate for that, and is only ever the heartbeat of now, and now, and now...

* * * * *

i wrote this journal entry yesterday, when for a moment it became clear to me that which is most obvious is that which is true. for some time now i've been rationalizing and intellectualizing this whole dismantling, using my mind as some kind of scope tool, trying to boil down the immensity of the love into a coherant concept that the mind would accept. even actively knowing that this truth cannot be known in the mind, and saying that, and living that way, the mind still does its dance and convinces itself that this truth can be known. even if only known in a way that would perhaps "blast" the mind into some submission, it is believed somewhere inside that the truth can be held there. but it can't. not ever.

there is the truth of this love, this divinity/spirit/self/god/buddha whatever you want to call it. for me, for now, it wants to be discovered as love, perhaps because that is what is most holy to me. and not holy in a way that i ever would have imagined, and not in the hallmark sticky/goopy/ego love kind of fashion. but love, as i know it to be, has been the beautiful, fierce grace in my life that has levelled me again and again as she shows her face of truth. love has driven my falseness from my hands again and again, and moved through the spaces of me over and over until there is little left but space. love, for me, is the same as truth. and i am blessed to see that, if only for a moment.

even writing these words, looking over the journal entry from yesterday, shows itself to be false. the love turns into a concept and the mind scrambles to make it fit properly. i see it happening, but still keep typing.... for whom? any reminders i set for myself will eventually have to be kicked down for the prisons they are to become. but for now, reminders... because that which is most obvious has proven itself to be the most interesting trickery between this human experience of mind/heart/existing.

love has shown itself over and over again to be that ongoing, never-not-here reality that fits the qualifiers of truth as i am capable of knowing it to be. it is not a thing, it is an ongoing current, and can only be touched for an instant in the process of living it. it cannot be defined, localized, held, or qualified. it simply IS. and more and more over the years i have known myself to be that.

the mind tries to shut down, for several reasons. the mind tries to deny the self-love aspect of love's infinate gaze at itself. for the love to be experienced as truth, it shows there is no difference between inside and outside. there is no "love for the world" and "love for the self" in different pouches. that brilliant fascination with itself that gets experienced in this bodymind is quickly co-opted by the bodymind and claimed to be egoic, as if the fascination was with some character named angela. it isn't. obviously. my gut/heart and all that is true here knows that. but the story goes on and on, in the mind:

it's not okay to be the truth, to be the love, because it feels too good. and feeling that good is bad. and you're not worth that love because you want it. if you were more pure somehow, you wouldn't get involved in the whole mess. etc etc etc.

the love's fascination with itself is without boundaries, and it sees itself everywhere, in the people, plants, animals, inanimate objects, and yes, in this bodymind. it doesn't have any drawing lines. not one. it is the oneness, it is eternal, and it is only the mind that says otherwise.

i am typing, and right now i don't "feel" blissed out, or particularly loving even. my brain is brimming with squirmy desires to move away from the moment, to go look elsewhere, to find a better buzz. yet if for a moment the grace comes, and the obviousness of the truth is recognized, the love is apparently going on and on. it only seems to know itself in motion. the silent contemplation where the "i" wants to stare at it in awe, in wonder at having access to it, is simply ego-destroying. it can't do so. every movement to want to own or claim this love is a movement to close the apperature, to basically shut the love off from awareness. of course, it acts anyway, despite my intentions. it has been doing so for years, moving me into caring work, compassionate action, and fearless relationship with truth while speaking to other human beings. it does that which "i" am incapable of doing, being selfless.

so for now, it is only a brief recognition, and simple thoughts on the subject. i will pray for the grace to keep seeing that boundary-less space between self and other dissolving. and i will also pray for the grace to see through the thoughts of self that are ugly enough to try to deny this truth in favor of the story of "i'm not good enough".... because that energetic up-movement, and down-movement, which has always been the truth of me, has shown itself again and again to be as much "inner" as "outer" and i sense right now that there is no difference.

to let it be, to simply let it be what it is, is the way love operates. and for that, i am grateful.