5 September 2020

Paul and I went for a morning walk around the farm and, as we were about to return to Andalus, received a message from Luna to join in a Zoom call that SFH was on, answering some questions from a young woman. We found Aaron, Grace and Mama Zee on the veranda with him and sat down quietly to listen. He was in his usual form, speaking about many of the things we have discussed over the last weeks in an ever more distilled and direct manner. A lot of the discussion revolved around the need for a balance between head and heart, and he gave a particularly stark answer to the question of how to talk about submission or slavery in a way more acceptable and accessible to the modern mind.

“There is only submission. Whether you submit to your soul or the outer desires which colour it, we are all in submission all of the time. The entire universe is constantly in worship, whether any specific part of it is aware of it or not. The only seeming choice we have in this life is whether we surrender to our temporary and transient desires, or the eternal and infinite within which is the spark that ignites them. Any desire is really just the outer shell of this inner truth, so the difference has not to do with whether we submit or not. It arises based on the direction of our intention when choosing what to submit to. In any case, we’ll all realise this once we die.”

SFH used this point to illustrate something profound about the nature of higher consciousness, our responsibility here (which is to care for and place appropriately the lower self) and how to achieve ever finer balance between mind (which changes) and heart (our constant connection to the Absolute): “You don't need to know the address of Number 1 in the cosmos: higher consciousness is taking care if itself. You just need to stop addressing anything else.”

After the talk was finished, we spoke for a while, and then I moved off with Grace to sit in the sun by the pond. There is a small waterfall which makes a delightful noise and the birds were singing their hearts out in praise, as always. Grace, being Grace, enquired after me and my parents and how the last few months of lockdown had been for all of us. She asked me what I had been thinking about and working on most closely. The answer I gave was about the gift and gift-giving: in particular what I had learnt from Kernel and the Diamond Sutra about how a real gift can only be given by a bodhisattva who does not believe in objects; who knows that what the Buddha taught as being is no-being, hence it is being.

We discussed Rumi’s idea of “Without cause, God has given you being. Without cause, give it back” and what the moment of that giving back is truly about. It is not a denial of this world; it is not given back out of exasperation or sullen abandonment, it is not a giving up: it must come from a true appreciation of the infinite value of a life in this world that is simultaneous with the realisation that it is not your life. It is just life, forever. It is eternal and infinite and we all stand as receivers in relation to it. In truth, there is no giving at all. There is just alignment with the flow of endless generosity.

This generosity is so great that we are actually the receivers of two gifts: the ability to be conscious in this world and see the perfection of every single moment, and then the gift of endless light once our very temporary and insignificant time here is up. Even if the moment seems to be one of pain or suffering, there is still only perfection in it: for we are also given the gift of not just seeing form, but the meaning behind it.

In order to illustrate this, Grace pointed across the pond at a yesterday-today-tomorrow. “This bush is telling us about the flow of time, but it is doing so by virtue of the timeless Reality within it and around it; in front of it and behind it. I can see the white, lilac, and purple blooms, and I can know about the past, the present, and the future. But I also know that there is only the eternal Now of which both bush and me are a part, participating in the endless self-disclosure of what is neither bush nor me, but gives us both life and light.”

We spoke a little about her own writing and upcoming book, about the sea and the horizon and growing up in paradise (literally the Paradise Islands in Hawaii). We noted the critical importance of honesty: a deep and wide, endlessly honest and courageous examination of who you really are, and all your local and particular experiences, until you reach a point where you discover there is no you and what you thought was you does not exist. It is from this point that the universal flows. It is the void at the heart of the self which is transmissive. Therefore, it is not me who is universal; it is not me who carries any message; it is not me who can write the real meaning of what it is to sit by a small koi pond listening to the sound of a waterfall playing with sunlight and speak sincerely with a companion of the heart.

Later that evening, after a dinner of leftovers from Aaron and Luna, Paul and I sat quietly. We had heated them up in a silver oven tray, and there was a little bit of oily gravy stuck to the pan which I still need to go and clean after finishing this. So much of this work seems to be about truly experiencing submission to the soul, with an intention that places one at just the right angle to see through the illusion of self and therefore align with the generosity which is from God, by God, through God, and back to God. If this state is held in the heart, then there is no difference between writing poetry and cleaning dishes: both are just limited ways of expressing artfully the same infinitude.

The fact I sat for half an hour in stunned silence and watched the light become ten thousand rainbows in a scraped oven pan full of oily gravy is but one more, meaningfully empty, example of this.