At One with all Life.
No longer just a concept,
But the direct Realization
Of my essential Nature.
The direct Realization
Of the essential Nature
Of all Beings,
Of all that cloaks Itself in form,
And of all that still remains formless.
The Realization that it is Formlessness
That apprehends form,
And that out of that same Formlessness
All forms arise,
Like swirls in a river,
As Formlessness flows in relation to Itself.
And because the I that apprehends form
Is formless
I am devoid of form.
And because That out of which form arises
And within which form exists
Is formless
It too is devoid of form
And because I am formless,
And because It is formless,
There is nothing to separate
Me from It,
No boundary to divide
What I Am
From what It Is.
Thus, what I Am,
As the Formlessness that apprehends form,
Is not separable from,
Or other than,
The Formlessness out of which all forms arise.
At One with all Life.
No longer just a concept,
But the direct Realization
Of the indivisible Formlessness
That just Is
Do not look to form for certainty.
Do not look to the Formless for definition.
The Formless can give you certainty.
Form can give you definition.
Do not look for in one
What can only be given
By the other.
The certainty that the Formless gives
Is its own Presence.
The definition that form gives
is its very existence.
The definition that form gives
Is knowledge.
The certainty that the Formless gives
Is Knowledge.
So it is that
The Formless cannot be defined,
Cannot be known,
As an object,
As a form,
But can be Known,
Directly,
As That which Is
In the absence of form,
And as That which still Is
In the presence of form.
The Knowledge that the Formless gives
Is the Consciousness of Itself.
Formlessness apprehending Formlessness.
The knowledge that form gives
Is the Consciousness of an object,
The Consciousness of a form.
Formlessness apprehending form.
Thus, both Knowledge and knowledge
Are apprehended by the same Formlessness.
It may seem that the Formless
That knows itself as an object,
As a form,
Is different or other than
The Formless that Knows Itself
As It Is,
As the Formless.
And so we venerate the Latter,
While denigrating the Former.
Seeing one as higher
And the other as lower.
But this is an illusion,
As the Formless Is One.
Non-dual.
Neither higher nor lower.
Only when viewed through the lens of duality,
The lens of form,
Does the Formless appear to Itself
As something other than One.
When viewed through the lens of form,
The duality inherent in form
Becomes superimposed upon That
Which Is forever Non-dual,
Eternally One.
A river may diverge for a short span
Before it meets up with itself again,
With one branch flowing smoothly
While the other may contain much turbulence.
If only the branches are seen,
There seem to be two different rivers.
But from a broader perspective
There is seen to be only one river
With two ways of flowing.
Those who Know
Only venerate,
Because they see only the One.
Those who only know
Both venerate and denigrate
Because they see the one and the other.
Those who Know
Are not better than
Or other than
Those who only know.
Those who only know
Just know something
That those who Know
Do not.
Those who only know
Are filled with the forms that arise
Where the Flow of the River Is turbulent.
Those who Know
Are filled with the Formlessness That Is
Where the Flow of the River
Is smooth or turbulent.
Sometimes I Know,
While at other times
I only know.
When I Know
I Know that whether I Know or only know
Does not really matter.
For when I Know,
I Know that when I only know
That I am not something other than
What I Am
When I Know.
But when I only know
That Knowledge is obscured,
And it then seems
That when I only know,
That I am something less
Than what I was
When I Knew
What I no longer Know.
And so when I only know
I try to add to myself,
To find myself,
And in so doing
Just create more turbulence.
And when the Flow becomes rough enough
I wake up again
And Know.
Such a game.
Such a ride.