Sunday, July 27, 2014

Secrets of the Bodhisattva



Kahlil Gibran - The Silence
The simple truth is that "freedom" is an ever-receding horizon. It is always some distance away. You never actually reach the horizon. You travel toward it, and then suddenly you are beyond it, and yes, there is another horizon stretching out before you. When you are truly free you realize there is no "true freedom," or rather, that "true freedom" is not what you imagined it to be.

Because one of the elements of "true freedom" is utter clarity of mind. But what this "utter clarity of mind" reveals is that "you" are bound up with the fates of everyone and everything everywhere. The sinews and ligaments of this responsibility are as palpable as the sinews and ligaments that bind together your physical body itself. When you tear one or the other there is pain and injury. Nevertheless, knowing what this "true freedom" really is, you do not dissuade others from seeking it.

Because even though "true freedom" is no freedom at all, it is imbued with a primal joy, that primal joy hitherto associated with the goal of "true freedom," and you want the others to experience this primal joy for themselves. And if they do, they will, in turn, gratefully accept the grave responsibility and all-devouring interconnectedness that it reveals. This is one of the secrets of the Bodhisattva.

The other is that the Bodhisattva returns again and again not just to alleviate human suffering, but also because this life is a blast, this life is where it's all happening, this life is the place to be for however long the opportunity presents itself.

-- Richard Power
 


My new (ninth) book User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality is available now from Amazon.com.