Am I . . . free . . . to be clear to explore
what I really desire, as I follow my bliss
with equanimity, in harmony with unity?
Am I . . . free . . . to be pure to cultivate
intimate contact with desire, as I express
love in exuberance, in harmony with unity?
Where I am, the sun is shining (again) and the snow is melting (again).
This morning, I took a walk in the neighbourhood and marvelled at the exquisite crystalline designs of an ice patch on the sidewalk. Earlier that same morning, in semi-darkness, I jogged towards this same patch, slowing my approach and walking gingerly across its icy spread.
Lately, more and more, I’ve been intending harmony with unity as serenity in every encounter, by bringing the presence of awareness to every encounter while walking a fine line between promise and power, between tapping the promise of sacred intent and taking the power of divine outcome.
By endeavoring to give every encounter its due, I can respect the power of an ice patch to trip me up, even as I can welcome the promise of an ice patch to offer me up its sparkling sunlit designs.
Not all of my encounters this morning were impersonal in nature.
Those encounters that were interpersonal had an added feature, an added bonus, if you will: the mystery of free will and the presumption of free will in those with whom I interacted in view of my need for visibility, by way of empathy, guided by reciprocity, born of vulnerability.
In offering up my presence to a cashier in a store, for example, I observed, in the fullness of presence, with serenity, the slightest of deviations from the energy of this serenity, noting with equanimity compulsive movements and words compulsively spoken, along with any attendant lack of eye contact where such contact would have been entirely appropriate. Within the same hour, I observed another, in the fullest of presence, and was drawn effortlessly into a sacred intimate resonance, experiencing (delightfully and divinely) a mutual, most welcome harmony by way of unity.
What does it mean to be human and divine? What does it mean to be divinely human?
Many ascenders among us have given up on being human; all they want is to be divine. Many descenders among us have given up on being divine; all they want is to be human. The gray ones among us just go about their business, caring less whether they are human or divine.
Let us see if we can raise the bar a bit with these less-than-enlightened perspectives.
* * *
In contemplating the human and divine dimensions of reality on earth, I cannot help but have my attention repeatedly drawn to the fact that the sacred dimension of life, soul, and fate is relatively absent from a society with a culture bent on becoming less and less human by the day.
That is to say, a society with a culture whose members are becoming more programmed as agents and more conditioned as subjects, whose routines are becoming more automated with advances in technology. Can anyone dare to see where this is leading us en masse?
Aside: yes, there are those who dare to care about this, and I am grateful for their contributions.
In contemplating the human and divine dimensions of reality on earth, I cannot help but see a missing piece to the puzzle of bringing divinity to humanity, along the way to becoming divinely human in our attractions and projections through our interactions and their interpretations.
The missing piece is simply this: the promise of sacred intent. The promise of sacred intent is the promise of bringing a sense of the sacred to every encounter, with due respect given to the quality of encounter, while remaining open to allowing a sense of awe and reverence to arise in response to the encounter. This promise is realized by bringing heart and soul to every encounter, whether or not this perpetual readiness of bringing bears any fruit for the bringer of sacred intent at the heart of soul, and this promise is fulfilled in the moment when the bringer is satisfied that no more bringing is required.
In my view, the promise of sacred intention and attention holds primacy in relation to the power of divine attraction and projection. In other words, the divinity to be found in attraction and projection comes in the wake of fulfilling the promise of sacred intention and attention.
That is, I can no longer uphold any divine possibility without the promise of sacred intent.
Sanctity and divinity are lofty dimensions of life and love, soul and spirit, fate and destiny, respectively, and humanity (as a dimension of reality with a nature, a condition, and an experience) could easily be construed as getting in the way of their satisfaction and fulfillment.
If sanctity contains the promise and if divinity carries the power, wherein lies humanity?
The condition of humanity and the conditioning of humanity virtually guarantee separation, exclusion, and division – all sorts of categorical placements make this possible: sex, gender, race, class, status, ability, religion, ideology, philosophy, ethnicity, language, and location.
If I hold one view, and you hold another, already we are separated by our views, but if I join with another who shares my view and we exclude you from sharing other views because we hold our view as being too important not to be held by everyone, then the result is a division.
Humanity on earth at this time is a race profoundly divided in all sorts of ways, for all sorts of reasons, and as the categories that I listed above continue to morph and expand in their novelty and variety and complexity, the potential for more separation, more exclusion, and more division continues to grow and grow and grow, resulting in a cacophony of chaos, conflict, and confusion. If this matter is not confronted and resolved mindfully, skillfully, and artfully, then it won’t matter what good comes from our material, spiritual, scientific, and technological advancements.
A transcendent view is necessary to turn an attitude of exclusivity towards an attitude of inclusivity, but old ways of thinking die hard. For example, what do you think of someone with breasts and a penis? (seriously, what do you think? personally, I can find breathtaking beauty in such a combination) Should this person use a washroom designated for men or for women? Or should a third category of washroom be added? But then, what about someone with a hairy chest and a vagina? With respect to gender, what do you think of someone who is not gender-identified? Who is identified with both genders, alternatively or simultaneously? With respect to race, is it better that races remain separate to better cultivate their respective cultures or that they mix and mingle to generate fresh culture? Or both? With respect to class, should a basic guaranteed income be made available to give everyone a fair chance at advancing personally and evolving spiritually, with a tax structure that claws back this income from those who don’t need it, while reducing tendencies towards crime, improving long-term health outcomes, and boosting efficiency in government? With respect to status, do we really need to keep giving personality, technology, and celebrity cult-like status, fueling separation, exclusion, and division? With respect to religion, does it really matter if I belong here or there, in this temple or this synagogue or this mosque or this church or this sacred space, just so long as I come into constructive, productive, creative relationship with the sacred and divine dimensions, on my own terms, in harmony with others?
I could ignore all of these complications and just go about living my life in relative peace with a bit of hard-won freedom to do as I please with whomever I please, but I cannot in good conscience do this.
In placing myself strategically in the Gray Zone at the center of this field, open to No Self and True Self, as a subject abandoned and as an agent entitled, I am finding and fulfilling a cosmic promise to bring presence to power that is cosmic in scope, acutely aware of the dynamic between oppression and liberation, even as I grow more into the awareness that the powers I yield and wield are not entirely my own. It is at the nexus between the presence of ascension (and descension) and the promise of disclosure (and exposure) that I approach ultimate fulfillment with powers that are, by turns, personal and transpersonal.
Personally, I now declare as follows …
I am . . . free . . . to be clear to explore
what I really desire, as I follow my bliss
with equanimity, in harmony with unity
Transpersonally, I now hereby declare …
I am . . . free . . . to be pure to cultivate
intimate contact with desire, as I express
love in exuberance, in harmony with unity
I now wish to address in turn each of these divine powers with sacred intent.
* * *
As a bringer of light from the heart of soul, the values I feel most at home being responsive to, expressive of, and persuasive with, are these: beauty, harmony, serenity, intimacy, and ecstasy.
This is my own personal bias, which I share freely now.
Having said this, I also know from experience that humanity, at its best, can appreciate their supreme value for living and loving the good life or, if you prefer, for living and loving la dolce vita.
I am . . . free . . . to be clear to explore
what I really desire, as I follow my bliss
with equanimity, in harmony with unity
The freedom to be clear to explore what I genuinely desire as I follow my bliss is the freedom to be clear to encounter beauty with sacred intimate intent, to welcome diverse forms of beauty to experience divine ecstatic outcomes, and to experience harmony with unity as serenity.
The presence, promise, and power of beauty in this world is ubiquitous, if we know where to look, and deserves a central place in our lives. We would also do well to keep in mind that beauty is spiritual as well as material, mental as well as physical, emotional as well as sexual.
In my view, beauty is best encountered with sacred intimate intent, with the intention of being intimate with beauty by bringing a sense of the sacred to beauty, open to being divinely inspired by beauty through delight, even ecstasy, and thereby finding harmony with unity as serenity.
You could call this my version of approaching a realization of the ultimate in personal fulfillment.
This version of ultimacy is, for me, instrumental in approaching the reality of cosmic disclosure.
Before I broach this sensitive subject matter, I have a bit more to say about the mechanics of being ready, willing, and able to embody sacred intimate intent in relation to divine ecstatic outcome.
When I embody sacred intimate intent in my daily encounters, I do so with no expectation of finding beauty and harmony in my encounters – only that I remain open to finding beauty and harmony – and if my intimacy should yield to ecstasy by way of serenity, then all the better.
Ideally, in my encounters, for the sake of serenity and intimacy, I have found it best not to assess and respond to what I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and feel – only that I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and feel. Likewise, I have found it best that I merely observe what I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and feel without need to express. But if, in feeling called to respond to what I assess and to express what I observe, I also feel called to profess or confess what I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and feel, then I do so knowing that what I profess or confess relies and rests on a firm axial foundation of assessing and responding to, observing and expressing, what it is I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and feel.
At the base of my being resides a need to perpetuate a stable existential platform by which to feel safe and secure in my person, from which to assess and respond to that which would undermine or overwhelm my relationship with this platform; at the heart of my being resides a need to have a supple existential vessel by which to mediate the root and the crown of my being, from which to observe and express with sacred intent; and at the crown of my being resides a need to have a fluid existential vehicle by which to profess and confess my divinely inspired outcomes. As the following declarations make clear, the axis of my being is fundamentally triadic in nature, starting with the root, moving into the heart, and finding my overview at the crown (and back down again), with these culminating reminders: “love is the key; there’s nothing to fear.”
More fully and more wholly expressed …
be true, be wise, be free; love is the key
stay safe, stay warm, stay clear; there’s nothing to fear
Ideally, I say and do as little as possible in a quiet, gentle, sensitive bid to see and hear and smell, taste and touch and feel, the qualities of my encounters with sacred intimate intent, while remaining open experientially to being delightfully or ecstatically inspired by the outcomes.
Of course, I will, on occasion, feel or experience inklings of fear and doubt, regret and worry, and I will, on occasion, be compelled or propelled to be coldly responsive rather than warmly responsive at the root of my being, firmly expressive rather than softly expressive at the heart of my being, and meanly persuasive rather than kindly persuasive at the crown of my being. With enough mindfulness and skillfulness and artfulness, however, I can and I do, as I choose, to catch these interior compulsions and propulsions internally before they see the light of day, which is a reflection of my commitment to remain in equilibrium with respect to and with respect for the cosmic duality and dynamic between ascension and descension.
Personally, I have a vested interest in exposing myself daily to beauty, to impressing myself with the many forms and functions of beauty, to expressing myself in relation to these forms and functions, so as to find harmony with unity by way of serenity with sacred intimate intent.
Intimacy is a complex outcome of a chain of many operations: if I am to be visible to others, to remain visible with others, I would do well to mindfully extend empathy to others; if I am to be empathetic with others, I must be willing to reciprocate, to give and receive skillfully, to and from others; and if I am to reciprocate skillfully with others, I must also be vulnerable with others, and to be so artfully not artlessly.
With respect to impersonal encounters, it is a simple matter to be visible to yourself through nature, to extend your empathy to lower density forms of life and consciousness, to give and receive care to and from these forms, and to be comfortably vulnerable in their presence, while remaining ever mindful of those moments when you feel it best to stay where you are – or to keep moving, forwards or backwards.
In reviewing as a whole these basic mechanics of being and becoming ready, willing, and able to embody sacred intimate intent in relation to divine ecstatic outcome, we can easily see their complexity, to better sense and appreciate their potential complications in daily life. Indeed, you may consider yourself very fortunate for having found your sophistication in solitude, even more so in relation to other solitudes.
Healthy roots bring fitness to the heart; a heart of fitness with healthy roots ensure vitality at the crown.
This basic existential health, fitness, and vitality of being are indispensable (read: absolutely necessary) for approaching and dispatching the monumental task of bringing a cosmic disclosure to humanity’s roots and origins, to its soul and spirit, through its fate and destiny.
Which brings us to the transpersonal side of finding the ideal starting point for cosmic disclosure:
I am . . . free . . . to be pure to cultivate
intimate contact with desire, as I express
love in exuberance, in harmony with unity
A cosmic disclosure and exposure of every one of humanity’s deepest, lightest, darkest secrets requires a stability of soul and a stamina of spirit not readily or easily found in this world at this time.
The holy cross, as it is depicted here in graphic form, is highly symbolic of the horizontal (sacred) and vertical (divine) dimensions of life and love, soul and spirit, fate and destiny, respectively, and need not contain and carry any religious overtones. In this graphic representation, we can see the many facets of cosmic disclosure and exposure. From a personal point of view, the occupation of position 2 is the most important of the three positions for two reasons: it is absolutely central to negotiating the tension of coming to terms with the duality of following your bliss into the light of presence through ascension (the blue arrow) while making peace with any exposure to the deep, dark truths of descension (green arrow). On the horizontal axis, position 2 is representative of the present, of being present to presence in relation to position 1 (the past) and position 3 (the future). A disclosure and exposure of the light and dark past for the sake of unity can only come through the present, by being in the present (not the past, not the future) and by seeing into the present moment by being present to presence in silence or stillness. Likewise, a disclosure and exposure of the light and dark creative possibilities for generating and maintaining a sustainable, enjoyable future on earth for everyone can only come through being present to the perpetually unfolding present moment while being mindful of the past and future.
The four arrows on the Cross of Disclosure and Exposure contain and carry the potential for me, for us, for anyone who feels called to disclose and expose, to be pulled in one of four directions, but we would all do well to remember and keep in mind that the pull of ascension is informed by the pull of descension, and vice versa, just as a draw into the past is informed by a draw into the future, and vice versa.
The dark square at the center of the cross at position 2 (the position of duality) is symbolic, not only of maintaining equilibrium with respect to these pulls and draws, but is also symbolic of what is called in the mystical traditions as “the cloud of unknowing”, in keeping with the Law of Confusion revealed in the Law of One teachings. In my post, Cosmic Field of Play: 5, I wrote deeply about this dark space:
The starkly contrasting dark space that surrounds the golden solar object is the gap, the pause, the psychological space of not knowing what is required or desired of one as and when one is faced with a choice to let it be or make it so, to be this or to be that, to do this or to do that, to have this or have that, along with the everpresent third option of knowing Nothing, of being present to the Absence of Nothing, to face the Abyss, the shadow of Presence, with equanimity, in harmony with unity. Never are we Nothing, identified with Nothing, subject to Nothing – only that we have reached a place in our evolution where we can hold the space for Nothing in the light of love as cosmic sovereigns.
Hint: if you think I am suggesting that we superimpose the cross on the field centered at position 2, you would be correct
I invite you to view it this way: if, with an epiphany, in an epiphanous moment, in a solar flash of recognition, in a moment of sudden revelation and insight, we were given all that we needed and desired to know everything basic and essential and ideal about our past, present, and future on this planet from the most highly ascended position possible, the game on this planet would be over, the stimulus struggle would end once and for all – no more puzzles, no more learning, no more striving, no more stimulus for growth, no more wondering, no more pondering, no more seeking, and no more finding.
We would all be back at square one – the golden one, not the dark one – and so here is what I warmly, softly, kindly suggest: stay inside the dark square with a perpetually seeking eye on the golden square.
In terms personal and transpersonal, material and spiritual, what could this possibly mean?
I kindly invite you to read my next post in this series.
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Note to readers: I published this post one day late only because I could; today, where I live, is a holiday, and so I took the liberty of taking my time to complete this post, fulfilling the promise of sacred intent.
This post has been filed under Context in the Ultimate Outline.
Note: my evolving outline on approaching a realization of the ultimate in personal fulfillment can be found here, accessible from the nav menu under the page “Be Here Now”.
Note: this ever growing perspective began here: Ultimate Perspective