Ram Dass Now

So it’s all the same thing. It’s all made of the same energy. God is everything. . . including me, and you, and that table. I like the comment that we are all fingers on God’s hand.  I like it because it really seems to fit—we may be God’s pinky, but until the pinky ‘remembers’ that it’s a pinky, it’s just a pinky dressed in the projections of an ego; but when it remembers that it’s God, that pinky becomes God—it strips itself of the ego; rather, the ego is, well, absorbed into God, into everything-ness. Is-ness.

Unbearable compassion. Hridayam, heart cave. Sameness. For a long time, I tried to meditate and ‘pretend’ that I was directly connected to the things around me; this used my brain and did a wonderful job of entertaining my ego.  Then came Be Here Now and that heart cave. The whole idea of going into your heart to really experience same-ness shook me up a bit—I had been so proud of my intellectual understanding that I had forgotten that experiential knowing comes from the heart. . . and REALLY knowing that you are the same as everything MUST involve total, unbearable compassion because it not only involves direct knowing of beauty in ways that go way out there, but also the same one-ness with deep pain, sorrow, confusion; what a beautiful arrangement, that even knowing pain is a direct expression of the highest form of Love: Compassion. Compassion is beauty; it is one of the greatest transformations to witness.

So, while meditation has changed in its form, I am grateful for having gone through the more ego-based ‘thinking’ that was masquerading as meditation . . . for that was a part of my path; without it, I would not have realized the difference, or that it’s all part of the same thing. It’s still all the same thing, even if we ‘get it wrong,’ we still get it right. Compassion for yourself folks. If you are starting a path of meditation, and things seem to get noisy at first, it’s ok; have compassion for yourself because you’re just going through exactly what you’re supposed to go through.

I’ll wrap up my first post by sharing that I’ve been at the beach for the past several days, with beautiful people. I’ve learned so much from the beach, from watching children catch minnows, then set them free because they are God’s children, too. Children get total, unbearable compassion.

Namaste’
Jonathan F. Anderson

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I woke up this morning and felt, “You know what? I just don’t have any f***ing idea about a HEART CAVE. This heart cave thing is just spiritual BS. [Right off the bat...I know...eek!] Wait Wait Wait, there’s got to be a hridayam, a spiritual heart. Well, I don’t feel it right now! I want to write about it in my first blog post. Should I make something up and sound super-spiritual? Nah that wouldn’t be authentic! And boy…. you want to be authentic. You’ll step all over yourself and even fake it to be authentic. Wait… you’ve got to feel it Blake. Heart Cave Heart Cave Heart Cave…. h-e-a-r-t-c-a-v-e…” And then I remembered something.

{OK, I’m putting it out there… I have memory problems (ie. more grist for the mill).}

I have felt this heart cave before. I just wasnt feeling it right now. Isn’t it strange how, in any given moment, we shift into almost completely different version of who we think we are? This whole morning I was a 25 year old guy that couldn’t make any sense or connection out of the first page of a book I was supposed to blog about for 108 days. Just two weeks ago, I was not only a 25 year old guy who felt deeply about a heart cave, but I was also leading a heart cave guided visualization during savasana in my hatha yoga classes. It went something like the following:

“The whole ribcage from back to front is soft and more pliable. And the sternum over the heart center is so soft, it’s less like cartilage and maybe more like a waterfall. And this waterfall is one that you can reach your hand through and even step through to reveal the secret and silent cave of your heart. You can see the water gushing and falling outside and see the light dancing through, yet this damp and cool inner chamber is silent and serene.”

Something like that. It amazes me, yes, that I didn’t remember leading this visualization. But then again I have known I have had some memory issues related to PTSD following my plane crash and hospitalization (9 years ago this Sunday). See, it amazes me more that when leading this guided visualization I felt that the thoughts were completely original to me. I have read BHN at least twice and thumbed it many times, but somehow I didn’t remember this HEART CAVE page. That is…. page 1. So naturally, I am up in my head now trying to figure out how I am supposed to digest all of this…. how I integrate it into my understanding of the mind. Here’s my thoughts:

1. Trust that I don’t always consciously remember everything. My subconscious receives tons of information. Stuff gets in. Quit trying so hard to readreadread learnlearnlearn. My subconscious remembered the Heart Cave from reading BHN.

2. The Heart Cave is an archetype of our collective unconscious and I just tapped into that leading the visualization. I didn’t actually remember reading the book.

3. Maybe I shouldn’t concern myself with what comes out of me. It’s all happening by divine grace–memory problems and feeling like a different person from moment to moment, taboot. The Heart Cave idea came to me, in the moment, from God.

4. It doesn’t matter in the slightest if and how I came about remembering it or not remembering it. In this moment I remembered it. In the next I may forget it. Big whup! I am just performing mental flagellation and well-rehearsed cranial circus tricks trying to figure out how my mind works. Be Here Now.Be Here Now. Be Here Now.

I like 3 and 4.

- bt