ancient lore

nameless grief, whispers
sands hiding fluid orchids
long forgotten dreams

the pursuit of happiness – part 2: the beauty of being imperfect

How many people nowadays are truly, honestly happy, with their happiness shining through every moment of their lives, not only for themselves, but especially for others? Nowadays, happiness seems to be measured by the amount of material possessions, the quality of marriage and professional life, and the well-being of the children. Of course these can be excellent sources of happiness. But the question remains: what exactly is the core of happiness truly about? Perhaps someone who is truly happy is someone who is at peace with the contradictions he’s confronted with, within himself and the world. Everything that is, is at its heart as it should be and can only be accepted as being as it is. Good, bad, light, dark, male, female, warm, cold, all these are aspects of a reality which, at its heart, is utterly incomprehensible; aspects which cannot be derived from each other, but which are inevitably and vitally entwined. Life is always what it Is and, much more often than not, not what we would like it to be. That does not mean Man is a completely helpless victim of some all-pervading, predetermined fate. No, it means that each moment we are given the choice to accept the things we already have at that moment, or to keep grieving over how things might have been. Even if we are utterly poor outwardly and physically disabled, we are still alive, so each day we are still given the chance to rejoice the graceful creativity and immense abundance of Life, erupting out of each moment.

The things you have are what they are, and it’s up to you to find the fertile seeds of inner growth within them, no matter how dark they might appear to be. Yet, difficult as it may often be to reconcile us with whatever Life has to offer, reconciliation also means an acceptance of our imperfections. Man falls and falls and falls, yet each time he has been given the chance to get up again and have another chance. Perhaps we should more often celebrate the chances we get after each mistake and stop complaining about the pain of our fall. Making mistakes, being imperfect is alright, because it is as it Is; our innate nature compels us to be flawed and make mistakes forever again because they are the vital ploughs going through the hardened, dark soil under our feet, so air and rain could penetrate its obscure depths. Contemporary humanity tends to strive after perfection in an attempt to eliminate our flaws and failures, our sickness and suffering, yet this attempt leads to an artificial world full of newly created tensions in which modern man is haunted by his more natural, imperfect side. He often fails to see that flaws, inner pain and suffering are like life-giving rains on the parched plains of his soul; they only appear as arid winds because he rejected and never really acknowledged their existence in the first place.

Without the moisture of our flaws creeping through the deep fissures within the fertile Earth, no seeds would be given the chance to germinate and grow into the beautiful flower hidden within its unknown essence. To a great extent, a soil is only as dark and dry as we allow it to be. Tasting the fearful mists of our innate struggles means cultivating a healing perspective in the long term, a perspective in which Man is not forced anymore to strive after perfection, but a perspective which teaches him he’s a vessel of human contradictions, necessary for his inner growth, his inner meaning and even his very survival. It’s a perspective which might create the much needed shift of attention from a destructive perfection to a healing wholeness. Perhaps then he learns to see his flaws, his inner pains and his wrestle with the world as an act of kneading and molding the raw earthy darkness of his mind in an attempt to weave his first humble footstep, his first genuine Creation, his first genuine attempt to break the mirror of his often superficial fixations; attempts which usually fail if attention remains fixed on the shell of pain instead of its core of healing potential.

Flaws are perhaps our deepest and most humbling resources to understand what Life is about; they might even be God’s best attempt to pour Himself out of this jar, this soul each one of us was given. Perhaps happiness entails becoming friends with one’s own flaws and the realization that one has merely just begun this journey of a thousand miles. Instead of being unhappy with the idea that he has not reached perfection yet, Man should rather start seeing his imperfection as a gift, because an imperfect soul is a flower impatiently waiting for the first spring sun so she can open herself up to the world and grow, and grow! An imperfect soul, above all, longs for being carried on Man’s back across the dark, cold and lonely marshes of the Depth to become an agent of spiritual nurturing instead of the victim of prejudiced, ignorant repression.

When Man befriends his flaws, he’d start feeling the soft winds of genuine Humanity blowing in his eroded face; winds sailing to him from beyond the horizon, carrying the subtle scents of Virtue which burns heavily within his deep, invisible core, waiting to grow into an endless river of Compassion. His own inner struggle and pain thus becomes the mediator for the growth of genuine Virtues. Thanks to his persistence and his surrendering to all his inner pains and suffering, he can now start Living the paradox he truly Is. The confrontation with the deep pain hidden within the core of so many conflicts, traumas and obstacles might have scarred his ego heavily, but on a deeper level, the pain becomes the fertilizer for the soul’s barren meadows, sprayed by the innocent hand of a lone wanderer, the awakened pilgrim now roaming again these unknown, fertile lands of old. Instead of fighting or fleeing the inner pain, he welcomes it, because it makes him painfully aware of his inner reality, this eternally swirling waltz of light and dark, out of which all Creation comes forth. Flaws, imperfections, inner pain and suffering might seem quite disturbing at first sight, but through their great healing power, they tend to make one generally more aware of one’s soul. Awareness leads to relativity, which itself leads to forgiveness, receptivity, kindness and a deep compassion with humanity. Humility blooms while he learns to accept others as they are, full of light hues and dark shades, just like he discovered within himself. The deeper he confronts, accepts and comes to terms with his own innate imperfections, the deeper and the more genuine the empathy flows out of him towards other people, replacing the old patterns of incomprehension and paranoia. In his utter solitude, he weeps over other people’s misery as if their misery is his own. But he is happy now, deeply at peace with his inner suffering, immensely grateful for its continuing blessings as it lets him further grow in humility and respect towards the Great Mystery which allowed him to follow this path in the first place; a path which is now truly of his own making. In the end, every path towards the realization of one’s innate paradox leads to a feeling of deep Self-value which can grow to become a freeing bridge, reconnecting the struggling soul with the living certainty of the Mystery he truly Is, that Being called “Human” under whose roof the Divine is housed.

How wonderful would it be to be born in this world as a naturally imperfect human being amidst other imperfect human beings, rather than a “perfect” human being striving after even more perfection to compete with the rest of humanity, which always appears to consist of other, even more perfect human beings. How could there ever be peace in such an artificial world?!

How wonderful would it be to be born in a giant field of flowers, each with their own little dark shades, yet each of them wildly dancing on the tones of a playful wind. If only we’d be more receptive to this healing perspective rather than forcing us to be born in an arid desert where the mortal fear of one’s shadow once became a heat wave of massive proportions, burning everything on its path. The wind retreated back beyond the horizon, the flowers curled back into their seeds and the wells of life were driven back into their dark caves below the Earth.

Oh Heavenly songs of old! When will your lights shine again visibly across the depths of the sea, the heights of the land and the hearts of the people? Why aren’t your symphonies being read anymore by a cup of tea in the silence of dawn, while its gentle light paints the first fragrant flowers of the day? Why is your serenity broken by the monotone hum of dead steel and grey concrete? Your songs resound like water droplets, falling through the foliage, longing to be a mantle protecting us against the bleak northern winds.

And yet..

Yet your whispers can still be heard during those countless little divine moments which happen each day, unknowingly to us, for if we would actually realize them, we would be shattered to pieces by the brilliance of their Divinity.

Oh Heavenly songs of old!

How beautiful your whispers are seen within the first gaze between two soul mates who, once born out of the same stardust, now face each other again after billions of years, somewhere on an unknown train speeding towards an unknown destination. Every gesture of evading glances, faltering words and blushing smiles is an eruption of inkless poetry on the vast lands of their timeless silence, spreading its hot lava between these divine moments of old.

Oh Heavenly songs of old!

Such Beauty and

such tragedy in this world!

awakening smile

amidst the mauled lands of my fallen mind
rosemary petals crumbling, shattered hopes,
you came, spraying your astral smile
radiating spores of amber buttercups, like
lacy grains, moonlit specks of inner warmth
drifting within the foggy cracks of my sorrow
your smile, like a healing lyre
softly wrapping round the dried up brooks
sappy tones, whimsical veins of life,
craving the old dusts to bloom

rains of gloom

abysmal dark dreams
I wept, arid thorns drizzling
letting your touch bleed

the pursuit of happiness – part 1: the human struggle

How can one save the world? This is another question I’ve posed myself often. People tend to believe they’re too insignificant to make any difference, but I think that is a huge mistake. If one manages to free himself from the choking tentacles of most of the principles ruling contemporary (Western) society (which Wilber so aptly named “Flatland”) and to change himself to become a more natural human being, he will always facilitate change in his immediate surroundings. Subtle and insignificant as it may be, it might be the little ball of snow needed to create an avalanche in the long term. This contemporary society, deformed as it may be, consists of individuals, people who all possess the power to grow into little balls of snow, little vessels each blessed with the potential for genuine change. And yet, these deeply meandering powers of transformation are not of our own making, just like the minerals needed for a blossom to bloom are not made by the young blossom itself. They are given to him by forces deeper and older than he will ever grow up to be; forces, obscurely hidden within gnarled roots and dark soil which need the potential hidden within the seemingly insignificant blossom to express themselves in a continuous act of authentic Creation. Likewise, Man does not possess these powers of transformation, but he can be a mediator to express them in the most creative and influencing way. Moreover, change should make one humble towards the potential he has been given; if the blossom believes he owns the powers of the tree, arrogance, self complacency and blind ignorance will fall like acid rain on its fragile flowers until it even threatens to undermine the health of the whole tree if such a belief pervades the entire group of blossoms.

Perhaps that is what is happening with this world today. The age-old wells of Creation seem to get buried deeper and deeper on an evermore faster pace. Instead of an individually unfolding inner Beauty subtly driven by a Holy Fire, a collective outer order of Ugliness has emerged, sailing chaotically on the chilling winds of the unchained yet still unrecognized forces of life. There’s a catastrophe in the making without precedence. At its heart, this catastrophe is not due to all these external problems the world is experiencing nowadays. Global warming, environmental degradation and pollution, overpopulation, crimes against humanity, the eternal hunger in the world, corruptions of power and the delusions sprayed by the Holy Religion of Money, all these problems appear to be merely the consequences of a disease which is rooted at a much deeper level. It can’t be found in any external things, but it hides deeply within the fathomless human soul, where the political, social and scientific revolutions of the past few centuries have created a split within the fabric itself from which Man is born.

Man did not just throw away God in the Abyss, but in his limitless arrogance and blindness he has even tried to take over His seat. Nature has lost Her sacred values to become the cold, statistical game of atoms, molecules, proteins and genes. Her eternally refilling well of wisdom is slowly being evaporated by the blistering sun of an all-consuming ratio and the ignorance of a race which is still arrogantly trying too hard to blow up every bridge which still linked him with his Origin of Creation. Man is no longer born as a Mystery which needs to be delicately unwrapped, but as a functionally complete unit, obscurely programmed for flat consumerism in an artificial world striving for technological perfection. The ancient foundations of countless, incredibly rich spiritual traditions, including all their preciously grown relations with the indescribable Mystery called Life, are threatened now, after only a few centuries, by utter annihilation as they’re forcibly dragged right towards the edge of the Abyss. It’s the choice between dying a silent yet deafening death, and being assimilated into this ever-expanding pseudo-religion of deadening Consumerism.

The few remaining people who still genuinely cultivate and experience this deep connection through their ancient rituals are seldom appreciated any deeper than by the money people are earning on their behalf, either by tourism or by desecrating their confiscated relics in Western museums, even though the people involved might claim otherwise. Man is slowly forgetting his roots thanks to the stubbornly ignorant denial of his own deep value. And he’s starting to notice it. More often than not, there appears to be something missing in his daily experience, something vital to his very survival on this planet. Not yet explicitly visible on the surface, but a creepy itch at the back of his head perhaps, hiding every time he tries to get a hold of it.

While his ego may think he is born as a complete individual standing on top of the highest mountain, in the depth of the soul he’s given he might actually be just a todler standing on top of a low dune after having lived in the depths of the ocean for many many eons. The idea that modern man is born a complete man seems só logical to him that it’s difficult to see what causes more damage to himself and his environment: his ignorance regarding his own, real position or his grotesque arrogance stemming from this delusional idea of being the ruler of the world.

Life is the neverending search for the path we’re individually painting by walking it. Modern man is loosing his painting skills as he has almost stopped searching. He is standing still and focuses on everything he sees beside his collective path. He is plucking the flowers by the wayside not knowing that at the same time he’s slowly yet inevitably cutting the roots of his own origins and the purpose of his existence. The faith of modern man in his completeness makes him dry and rigid, a massive monolith of external superficialities for which each expression of true inner beauty and depth needs to be marginalized in order to uphold the integrity of his precariously constructed personality structure. Every counteraction against the essence of this rigid, artificial monolith, every serious attempt to glance beyond the narrow boundaries of this limiting world of reductionistic materialism is immediately considered as highly suspicious and abnormal.

But perhaps this monolith is also necessary for change. Because it is so unnatural, a counteraction must happen one day. Man is no monolith, but a living, dynamic and miraculously swirling dance of light and dark, turning and turning and turning…

Every unnatural behaviour is like a ball thrown up the slope of a steep mountain. At some point, the natural gravity of the place will stop the ball in his upper movement, and, whether or not he likes it, will cause it to roll the other way. Of course, we wouldn’t be humans if this counteraction would not result in an exaggeration in the opposite way, on the opposite hill. It’s only after countless up and down movements that the ball will find its rest in the darkly green, lush valley in the middle. It’s impossible to reach other mountain tops without going through the valley, but only by following this lowest path in the fertile valley can one reach all mountains.

Instead of roaming these fertile valleys, people nowadays search after the high altitudes of the mountains. Each standing on a mountain top, people are loosing touch of each other; in their deceptive yet tragic solitude they keep fighting for the highest summit, barren and cold as it may be. They are slowly forgetting about the verdant valleys below, where the mountain creeks still sparkle and the sun still welcomes the first rustles of blooming buds during the early days of spring.

How did it come this far? How could this devolution be stopped and changed? No doubt the individual has a huge responsibility in this change: he’s part of the system, thus programmed to follow the herd to where ever it’s going, even if it means jumping off the highest cliff. But if he manages to change himself radically, he can be a lantern for others, a little ball of snow becoming an avalanche, who cannot be touched anymore by the mentality of the herd.

Perhaps then the world will already be irreversibly changed..

redemption

vultures, unseen by many
melting their shadows with ours
as we keep walking the same direction as before,
driven by the vision of technological perfection
which lies within our reach

but does that make us more human?
does that make us more at peace
with ourselves and the world?

God has died
Man became God
Man will die too, if
the ignorance of an entire race
regarding its own innate darkness
will survive the outer meltdown

we seek peace
we seek harmony
we seek happiness
but what seems one inside will inevitably be split outside

authentic peace embraces the awareness of
an inner paradox which bridges the outer abyss
between good and evil
cold and warm
male and female
light and dark

authentic harmony is a lone wanderer
descending deep into the mud of the Earth
through the darkest pit where
the doorway to Heaven can truly be found
because a blossom will only be allowed to bloom
when the tree is rooted deep into
the dark Unknown

authentic happiness is saying “yes” to
the inner paradox of oneself
so the deep flaws of others can be greeted
with a smile of genuine compassion
instead of the apathic gaze of contempt

fields of flowers will then be allowed again
to express their inner sacredness
to grace their subtle imperfections with
a dance between the stubbornly dark and
the playfully light shades hidden
between the folds of their own unfolding

each flower will then again be
looked upon as a unique being
by the appreciation of their natural flaws
instead of statistically trivialized
by their common dreams of artificial perfection

perhaps

perhaps then we can finally become
what we’ve always been
but seemed to have forgotten in our outer strivings:
sacred vessels through which
the Mystery we call Life can individually be painted
and poured into the world at large
so God can finally grow
towards Its authentic expression
through each and one of us

vultures, unseen by many
melting their shadows with ours
as we keep walking the same
direction as before

endless moments

meandering mists
through distant chimes, scents of myrrh
frozen in time’s chill

dreams

cold moon softly breathes
carnelian dreams, fading
blossoms still asleep

the primal cause of fear

What is the primal cause of fear?

This is a question I’ve posed myself so many times during the past decade, yet each time the question appeared in another form. When I look at my situation, there doesn’t seem to be an easy answer to it. The little pieces of a distant answer often don’t come by chance, but arrive at me by going through just another dark and heavy door made out of the piled up crippling memories of old. The key to these doors usually remains hidden up to the last moment, revealing itself only when all hope seems nearly gone.

Instead of steadily and meticulously delving into the soul I was given, I (that is, my ego) tend to avoid these tough questions and rather flee from the scene into all kinds of more or less nonsensical activities (my favourite one is wasting a whole evening on watching stupid, meaningless movies). A world of inner fantasies often opens up to compensate the outer shortcomings. Fear to open myself up towards the inner and outer world. Fear to make a step into the Great Unknown because the fear to loose everything is still greater than the hope to win everything. “Trust is the key to growth”, Saint John of the Cross would have said, yet I rather seem to prefer the certainty of a fear that to risk would mean to fall into the Abyss, than the uncertainty of a trust, a faith and a hope that everything will eventually be alright. Although genuine proof is offered to me during every single moment of every single day (and all of it by free! If thát doesn’t make one humble, I don’t know what does..), it still remains difficult to transform the uncertainty of a fragile faith into the intuitive certainty of a deep Knowing.

I truly am standing at the edge of an Abyss, wondering what I should do. The Great Unknown awaits me on the other side, and to be honest it looks quite hostile from my position, with volcanoes spitting devastating pyroclastic flows and giant monsters roaming arid deserts of stone and dust. How I cannot stop crying! A desert of twisted darkness, wild and chaotic, naked and revealing keeps confronting me every second of my life with the inescapable fact that its darkness is largely because I feared to look at it, because I feared to answer the continuous knocks on my door. The only thing useful I can really do at this edge is exactly the thing I fear most: to make a step off the cliff, thereby trusting the Great Mystery that this step is not a step into an Eternal Darkness, but the first cobblestone of a narrow bridge yet to be made, a first authentic, humble gesture towards an Unknown which begs me to take up my responsibility towards its very existence, yet a gesture which at the same time strikes at the heart of the existential crisis of my stubborn ego mind.

This existential crisis reminds me of a dream I had not so long ago. In it, I was standing in a large, dark bedroom on the first floor of my grandfather’s house. There were about ten beds, and on each of them one person was lying on top of the blankets. All of them wore white masks on their faces. So I went to one of them and took off the mask, only to find another white mask beneath it. After about five or six more layers of white masks I finally got to the last one. Yet underneath it I found….. only darkness. No face, not even a cushion. Nothing except an utter darkness. This seems to be the innate structure of my ego mind: masks upon masks upon masks upon a dark emptiness which is too terrifying to directly experience without having a deep, vivid trust and hope, throbbing at the heart of one’s soul (the one direct experience I had a few years ago was terrifyingly crushing indeed, because I hadn’t previously built any decent hammock to break my fall).

Yet that’s exactly where I am right now: the edge of that same Abyss with the last mask almost torn apart now. Insanity clutches the hands of wisdom even tighter. The last door of this decades long struggle seems lying ahead, right there in that darkness. But a step must first be made, a risk must first be taken, a bridge must first be made. I’ve done almost everything I can possibly do on my own, but now I have to go beyond and trust a Greater One, a Deeper One, an Unknown One. Loose everything or win everything. In my innermost core, am I fear or am I hope?

Perhaps I truly am that small baby which has just been thrown upon an unknown beach in an unknown land by an immensely vast and deep ocean, crying and moaning as he’s blindfolded by his own fears, his own disbelief in the value of his desperate cries for help.

Perhaps help is already on his way.

Perhaps help has never really left him..

impermanence ii

seeds of mystery
droplets reflecting oceans
veiled, ungraspable