Nothing More, Nothing Less

Imogene Cunningham - Black Lilly (circa 1920s)

It is a blessing to awaken in the depth of the night, in that long embrace between the first kiss of midnight and the final cry of dawn.

You can "meditate" without "meditating." You can hear the darkness and see the silence.

Turning heart/mind in upon itself, you will realize that you are nothing more than a cup, and nothing less than a chalice.

And that you hold nothing more than a shimmering emptiness, which is nothing less than the whole of the throbbing universe.

Yes.

-- Richard Power

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

The Fiercest Place

F.E. Church - Twilight in the Wilderness (1860)

Vast expanse of space. Rich soil of psyche. Not two.

No real division between them. Only the silken thread of the dream weave. 

Walking amidst this multitude, I wonder how many know? How few? 
And of those few who do know, how many choose to live this truth from the fiercest place? 

How many choose to journey along the exquisite trail? 
The one that leads into the wilderness and beyond. 

Few. So few that you can hear their footsteps. 
Even when they are going back the other way. 

Which ever way you are going, listen. The silence of this wilderness has information for you. 

There is medicine here. Made just for you. 

Don't leave it behind.

-- Richard Power

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

Without Flinching

Odilon Redon - Je suis toujours la grande Isis! Nul n'a encore soulevé mon voile! Mon fruit est le soleil! trans.
"I am still the great Isis! None has yet lifted my veil! My fruit is the Sun!" (1896)

There are two kinds of greatness. 

There is a false greatness. The history books are rife with it. 

False greatness becomes entranced with its own story. It fuels itself with the delusion that it is a masterpiece of its own making. But in relation to the crushing weight of reality, it is only a brittle and shallow thing. And in the end, it is reduced to rubble. 

True greatness does not live in a state of delusion. It does not fall for its own story. It arises out of nothingness, subsists in nothingness and returns to nothingness. Fullness within emptiness, emptiness within fullness. True greatness can watch itself be incinerated from within, without flinching. 

Great love, great beauty, great promise all lost in the self-perpetuating fire of the void-plenum. Yes, true greatness can watch itself be incinerated from within, without flinching. Knowing with an existential certainty that there is a greater beauty, a greater love, a greater promise yet to come, and that, yes, these too will be incinerated in turn. 

The great ones laugh when there is every reason not to. Choose laughter. Choose greatness. The heart that beats in you is the throbbing heart of the universe itself. All creation is loss. All loss is creation. A glorious, ceaseless shout ...

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

Fallen

Pablo Picasso - Woman with Raven (1904)

A great tree has fallen in the forest of this life.
Countless poems vanished into silence as it crashed to the earth.

The great tree's last vision was of a beautiful white raven,
Which took off from its highest branch, with no desire to return.

Moments later, the tree fell of its own weight, never to see the mountains again.

-- Richard Power

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

Written In Sand

Rene Magritte La Liberte de l'esprit, trans. "Freedom of Mind" (1948)

Seeing into the future course of someone else's karma (whether near term, intermediate or distant) is often a saddening experience. Particularly, if that person is a beloved friend, and the emerging course of events has altered the course of your interactions with that beloved friend. But there really isn't much that can be done with such information. You can't "save" anybody from anything in that way. You can't save someone you love from a bad choice they are on their way to making, particularly in affairs of the heart. You can't show a person how they are being played, unless they have already begun to see it. 

No, in general, you are not allowed to share such information directly. 

And even in those rare instances where it is permissible to share it directly, e.g., if the person asks, typically, if you share what you see it, you will only hasten them on to embrace those unfortunate choices you have seen them make in that possible future. AND even if the information does thwart some unfortunate choice or another, it may well lead to unforeseen and perhaps even worse consequences for them, and either way it will probably result in you being resented sooner or later, for meddling or wrongly influencing events. 

So all you can do is stand open, and breathe, and share what you can with that beloved friend, on the margins, and in the ether of prayer. And yes, hope it dawns on them - THIS DOES HAPPEN sometimes. Of course, it is also true that very little is actually written in stone. Most of the future is written in sand, and often shifts and takes on new shapes, yes, for better, and worse, and both. All you can really do with such a siddhi is respect it, and hold it open, and not abuse the privilege of having it. All you can do is breathe, and live with an open heart, yes, always love unconditionally. Sometimes (most of the time) unconditional love is the only message worth communicating.

-- Richard Power

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

Inside the Fire

Leonor Fini - Les aveugles, "The Blind Ones" (1968)

After all, desirelessness is not the absence of desire, that's just another one of those false memes that have strangled mystical teachings for thousands of years (East and West), Desire IS life. Desirelessness is just exercising clarity of mind from inside the fire that is desire. Because, you see, there are two types of desire. One is grounded in emptiness, and the other is grounded in a little pretend self. One is a fire that liberates all it touches, the other is a fire that simply destroys. 

The desire fire that liberates all it touches allows all your other loves to flow, in truth, and yet is not threatened or diminished in any way by allowing them to be recognized as what they actually are and remembered as what they actually were. It does not have to hide or restrict. 

That road ends in utter radiance. 

But the desire fire that simply destroys compels you to re-image your other loves until they are all something other than what they really were, and something less than what they really are. And then once it finishes re-imaging everything else, it begins re-imaging itself. 

That road ends in ashes all around. 

Can you allow yourself to have your desire and still see the truth of things? Or does your desire warp reality to fit the shadow of its flame on the walls of fear? 

Each of us must choose, and it is in choosing that we define ourselves. 

Do you choose to remember or to forget? Do you choose to only remember what is convenient? 

Choose? Ah well, choicelessness is another challenge to ponder ...

-- Richard Power

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

A Wheel In Motion

Salvador Dali - Wheel of Fortune, 1978

Consider this. A wheel in motion doesn't just turn.  

It returns. Ceaselessly.  And yet, as it returns ceaselessly, it is also moving ever forward. 

Indeed, the wheel's ceaseless returning is the very way it moves ever forward.

-- Richard Power

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