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

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