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The Tree of Life

The sage continues, “There is an ancient story that used to be told about the tree of life, until it was changed by jealous men who wanted to confuse and punish the masses. You see a long time ago there were people who lived by a simple code and they ate from the bounty of the earth without much thought of jealousy and separation. They walked always with their beloved throughout the world. The men of the clan would go about naming things that they called their own and the women of the clan would do the same. They consorted with all the animals and talked to them and named them. And in council it was decided what names would be used for different things and there was very little disagreement about the nature of things. Peace was had by all. Then one day there was discovered a massive tree that grew in the very center of their tribal lands. It was uncertain why it had never been noticed before. The entire world seemed to depend on this tree. The great rivers that they played in flowed from its roots. And the sky itself was suspended by its truck and branches. The men called it Father and the women called it Mother. A great fight ensued that lasted longer and was more terrible than any other fight that had ever occurred. So the men threatened to take away the sun, and the women threatened to take away the rain. And the Tree started to die. It was decided that no one should go to the tree. It was forbidden! And no one could eat the fruit anymore! And no one had the right to name the tree.


So the animals got together and decided to play a trick on the people. They convinced the men that women were sneaking to the tree on the full moon and the women that the men were sneaking to the tree on the full moon. So on the night of the full moon the animals climbed into the tree and waited for the men and the women to arrive. By this time the men and the women were very estranged from each other and hostile. They arrived at the same time and immediately started to accuse the other of sneaking to see the tree, of calling it their own, of naming the tree.

The animals in the tree waited till it almost seemed that the fight would get violent. And then they all started to shake and stamp. The fireflies lighted their tails. And the people fell silent for they had never heard the voice from the tree.

“Who dares to come to my tree and claim to own it. I am neither Father or Mother. I am neither yours or the worlds.”, cried the animals in a thunderous voice that came down from the highest branches of the tree.

The people fell to their knees in fright and shame. They were humbled by the supreme being that was communicating with them. They decided to share the tree, to not worry about ownership and who had the rights to the tree. Peace was restored.

This story used to be told by all the peoples of the world. Maybe someday it will be told again. He chuckled as he remembered the animals laughing with busted guts at the silly humans that fell for their sublime and ridiculous trick! The horses kneeed and the elephant roared with laughter. Even to this day the birds talk about this in their chatter! He chuckled again and again.

The young aspirant

"What is the Ultimate truth of existence" asked the young aspirant, "Is it stillness?"


The sage replied."The ultimate truth? Yes! It is Stillness,

 but it is a stillness
stiller,
than the stillest stillness distilled.

Essence Design

This picture is a 3D rendering of a landscape design that I put together for a client. You can click on the picture to see a larger version. It has been really interesting working with them as I get a chance to develop skills and learn about landscape design and installation.
I should find out soon if I have been accepted to the Masters Degree Program in City and Regional Planning. If I am I might be off following another passion of mine in sustainable design. Here are a few excepts from the statement of purpose that I put together for the application. It explains a bit about my interest in sustainable design:

The possibility of transforming the world through sustainable design has intrigued me for many years. I pursued the application of this idea through extensive study and experience in organic agriculture, alternative building techniques, and community living. As my experience with these systems expanded I came to realize that on a deeper level all issues can be resolved from a design perspective. A further exploration of the source of problems revealed that the decision making process and world view of the individual can have a big impact on the outcome. The opportunity to undertake the MCRP Program will serve to further my understanding of the relationship between design and quality of life in the built environment.

My career goal is to help people live better through the design of sustainable systems such as farms, neighborhoods, urban areas, and private enterprise. In the future I see myself working on projects that are on the ground with hands-on design components such as scale, aesthetics, and relationships. These projects would include ecological, agricultural or production elements; financial elements such as business planning and budgets; organizational components such as management and management structures; and social and relational components.

That was quick and dirty summary of my interest in sustainable design. On a related note, it has been quite interesting to integrate the work from the spirituality perspective with that of sustainability. There is definately some confluence of ideas here that is pretty interesting. It seems to me that many of the principles of spirituality can also be applied to sustainability.

Is Organic more spiritual than conventional?

Do you agree,or disagree? That question should raise some hairs!@? It seems so interesting to think about what motivates people to 'go green'. Is it just a trend, or is it essential to our survival? From the perspective of environmental degredation and resource depletion it sure seems innevitable that at some point we must
change in a way that is compatible with nature. This compatibility factor seems to be what sustainability really boils down to. A fancy way to describe it would be 'Harmony'.

So back to living the dream in the here and now. To turn the dream into reality I have started a consultation practice in the areas mentioned above. So far a few projects have been keeping me plenty busy, so God willing, and with a little luck the list of clients and projects will begin to expand. If you have any contacts or ideas in mind please let me know!

I have named my consultation practice:

Essence Design

Am I enlightened?

Am I enlightened?

Of course!

So are You! 

It seems so obvious that the question is already a thing of the past. I say this because there is no more searching, no more waiting, no more need, and no more grasping. Of course these things all still exist, it is just that they are recognized as they are: Paper Dragons.

What I used to live within, the mind, with all it's definitions and separations, I am now, ecstatically transcended, beyond.In the full recognition that what one’s fundamental nature is: Sat Chit Ananda, there is no more separation. Therefore there is no ‘I’ to experience enlightenment. For me this moment is supremely blissful, for you it may fall like a gentle rain, or as the grace of God, or as the dynamic flow of life. We are all on our own paths. We all experience this differently.

Also this is not a final enlightenment if you will, because in the recognition of who we are, even the idea of acheivement melts away to reveal another game of the ego. Either way it is the same, because there is no attachment to the words as they fall from the mind and are captured on this page. There is no grasping, no tension.

So the tension is yours. Release it!

And so it is.

Down a sweet and soft path we must go. It is an inner journey and so must be done alone and in silence. I don’t mean that you cannot speak or sing. The silence is in the mind. Having transcended mind it is abundantly clear that the mind must serve the will of the Self. Otherwise it is a tyrant at the helm. The Self is whispering in your ear. Can you hear its sweet and melodious voice?

Come with me on a journey to the heart. Feel the soft green grass beneath your feet, the rays of sunlight pouring out into the garden, the sound of laughter; these are all images of purity. Follow them. Follow them down into the heart. Sit still and meditate on the sweet color of green. Wash your entire being in this bright green glow.

Now let it all fall away. Loosen the mind. Let the image fade to a clear sky. There is no image.

Only to let the mind relax and to stop interfering in the natural, ever present, unfolding of what Is. It is a deep and slow song. It must be concentrated on in an effortless pose, both in body and mind. So quiet the mind and then listen in utter stillness. This vast stillness, this limitless ocean of bliss, is who we are.

We are the totality that includes all else.

The aspects of ourselves that are transient come and go. Our transitory body is the Earth and all the people and plants and animals and our personal body is our greatest vehicle to truth. Without it we could not taste the sweet nectar of what is. We are humming birds in God’s garden collecting sweet bliss, reveling in the joyous sanctity. Hari Om.

A Question for my readers

Thank you for taking the time to read my posts. I hope you have enjoyed visiting my site. It has certainly been a journey for me. I have so many great memories and experiences that I am happy to share. I amazes me to think how diverse the world is, and how each of us follow such different paths.

I am just now beginning to move into a new phase with my blog. In a way I was starting to feel a bit burned out with trying to conjure up new and exciting stories. I also started working so I have not had as much time as in the past. So now I will attempt to move into a more down to earth approach.

So, here is my question:

What impact has reading my blog had on you?

You can email me at terryhooker@earthlink.net or comment here for others to see.

I do hope you have enjoyed the blog so far! I have always envisioned the blog being a chance for me to share my stories and help build friendships and community so your comments are very much appreciated. I know it takes time to develop ideas and write them down, but don't be discouraged, just type in what ever comes to mind.

   

The Natural Way

Yet again I am reminded of the TRUTH: my true nature is sat chit ananda (Existence Consciousness Bliss). Looking for answers in the world of form is like trying to touch images on a movie screen. It is like looking in the wrong place. The solution cannot be found. What is found is always relative and subject to changing and drifting and shifting. We might find peace for a moment or a day or a year, but the dance of Maya will go on and on. Flowing with the dance and making choices is a joyous part of life, but the real solution, the real final truth, the final magical and definite answer, is that the only dependable, stable, solid, lasting, durable thing we have is the truth of our nature: sat chit ananda.


So we have again the great division of the one. The one truth is sat chit ananda. There is no need to challenge this. It is what it is. Meanwhile, the dance of Maya is unfolding and moving within the one. We may not have “chosen” to be born, but we have a choice about how we are going to flow with the dance. This is the level of figuring out the details of what our intention is, and what we want to do with our lives, and how do we respond to the many issues that arise in this human life. We are multi-dimensional beings. We are microcosms of the entire universe.

So the "inner" world can be at peace, completely free, resting with assurance in the reality that our ultimate nature is pure and stable: sat chit ananda, and at the same time our "outer" world can be a tumultuous chaotic mess, always shifting and changing.

This paradox of balance and chaos is expressed in the Bhagavad Gita as equanimity.

Enjoy.

The waves are calling me

The waves are calling me

Towering, emmense, cushing

and then...

calm and sultry

and warm...

I can feel the sun on my skin

and the slow rocking of the boat

The mystical sensation pours over me

moving through my body

It is calling me...

To the sea!

To the sea!

It is calling me.

Someday I would like to write to you about my adventures aboard Luna in the Channel Islands. I spent 6 weeks sailing there with the company of friends at times and also alone. The many days I spent alone were some of the most magical times of my entire life. Alone on the sea, and at the islands has to be, without a doubt, the most sublime experience!

Of course it was horrid at times: when my hands felt like meat hooks from hour after hour of trimming sails and holding on during windy passages, and when my whole body ached from lack of sleep and exhaustion.

But when the sun was shining and the weather was calm. I would go ashore and meditate on the beach, listening to the sound of the waves. So sweet to sit and wonder at the mystery of living. What power is such that it can create islands and waves and sea shores? What wonderful blessing to be able to breathe and move and dream! To dream! What a blessing to be able to penetrate to the very core of what it means to exist!

The beloved

Truly, I behold you now.

The curtain is withdrawn.

Kundalini rising, Prana, Light of Truth, Bliss.

Truly I behold you now.

I call you my constant companion, even as I remember how often I feel abandoned. It is you, oh energy of God, that fills my form and dances in me, and while you are here I am in bliss. Every thought bliss, all possibility  present, genius,creativity, freedom.

How can I love that which is so vague and elusive?

Oh! To feel it is to know the meaning of who we are.

It is to know how truly deep our love goes.

The air grows thick and saturated with presence.

Separation fades away.

 The vision softens, the ears listen more intently

 Oh sweet bliss: the crystal pure fragrance of bliss.

All ecstatic, like a lovers embrace.

Then, it is gone

 like the falling tide

and I am a gopi looking for my dear Krishna.

Was it a dream? Was it real?

Only the indellible mark left by the tide remains.

 I search for faint signs like a bent blade of grass

 or stain of cool water high on the branches of trees.

I hold onto these sweet memories.

I hold on.

Till you return.  

Emerging light

Today, I look back upon the passage of life through a long lens. I see my life as a small fragment of what has come before me and what will come after me.

The image above is a spiral carved into a rock at the Prana Festival. The spiral is a symbol that continues to reveal itself to me on my journey. It represents the movement of the cosmos from cycles to progressive evolution and change. It represents the cosmic movement of masculine and feminine, yang and yin. Always we seem to return to the same place with each passing day, or year, waking up in the same bed, or repeating the same action time and time again. Always the same, yet on some sublime level there is slow change.

With each breath we recreate the entire universal motion, expansion and contraction. With each passing year we move through the seasons of a lifetime. The spiral is ever new as it twirls and dances across time and space. It is a symbol of renewal and hope. In the spiral is infinte possibility, infinte time, and infinite space.  

The present moment

The present moment passes by, whether gently or forcefully,

ever passing, ever passing by...

I am breathing... in this day...

ever passing, ever passing by...

I am becoming... throughout this lifetime...

ever passing, ever passing by...

I am dreaming... of this identity...

ever passing, ever passing by...

I am being... this thing called life...

ever passing, ever passing by...

I am... that which never changes...

ever passing, ever passing by...

Synchronicity

Today, synchronicity played its hand. While pondering the nature of reality, over coffee, of course, I ran into a poet. Through a bit of teamwork a fluid expression of truth emerged. We went through several versions before the final draft was settled upon. It is simple and short, but, to me at least, it says a lot. Enjoy.

Separation, is

a shadow cast.

Itself proof

of light, at last!

Infinite Possibility

In the moment that the shattering of the shell occurs, the breaking open of the heart, I emerge. Enveloped in a sweet sublime light. I settle on soft green grass beneath the shade of a sacred oak. I feel light. I feel free.

I am free.

I am timeless spirit.

I am unbounded joy.

In the opening of the heart all things are possible.

In this sacred space I know who I am. I exist in two worlds, yet they are united, there is no separation. One is eternal. The other, the world of form, of name, of body, of mind, passes away, changes, dissapears, and then returns. Again and again I feel the suffering and the joy of earthly life.

The Eternal is pure bliss consciousness. In this I am truly free and limitless. It too appears hidden at times when the manifest world is mistaken as real. The recognition of our timelessness overwhelms any idea of limitation or separation.

I exist in both these worlds. They are united, there is no separation. I accept the limitations of the manifest world, and I let go. I fly free in the limitless ocean of bliss.

Into the Himalayas

I bought tea for these guys in Badrinath. Interestingly it was a bit difficult to buy tea for just a few because there were many wandering and 'homeless' pilgrims around town. If I announced that I was buying tea, then I would have been on the hook to buy tea for a hundred people. I had to motion with a little gesture of the head that they should follow me into a little tea shop. "Chai! Chai! Chai!", is the chant heared on the street from morning to night. It was cold in this high mountain place so the hot tea was a good support for body and mind.

Badrinath has an old temple right on the edge of the river that flows through town. You have to cross an old bridge and take off your shoes and buy some prasad to leave as a blessing. Then past the guards and into the central hall to see the temple statues. I beleive this temple was intially built by a mega-master of spiritual power who went by the name of Adi Shankara. It was only a few weeks earlier that I noticed a picture of a monk meditating on a leopard skin and was somehow attracted to it. It turns out it was Shankara and it truly amazed me how it seemed he called out to me through the ages.

It would be truly impossible to express the depth of who he is and what his teaching represents. So I will leave you with the invitation to look into it for yourself. The depth of the Vedic tradition is like the vastness of time and space itself, of which Shankara's work is but a small piece.

Sri Ramakrishna

A mother loves all her children equally, but she so arranges the food for them that everyone gets what agrees with him. Similarly, the Lord has provided different forms of worship to suit different men with different capacities and in different sateges of spiritual development.

Sri Ramakrishna

Sorrowful Longing

Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart,
never give up, never losing hope.
The Beloved says, "The broken ones are My darlings."
Crush your heart, be broken.

- Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir

God is one

If the last blog about my experience with, The Form, left you a bit confused I will try and explain.

When I was in India in Rishikesh, I lived in an ashram where everyone got up early and did yoga. It was so cool. We lived very simply and washed our clothes with a bucket and soap. We could walk to some small cafes and also to a little village where we could get rice and dahl and vegetable curries. I met some really interesting people there from all over the world, and I would entertain them sometimes with a crazy tune on the sitar.

The ashram was right next to the Ganges River, and all throughout the day you could see people bathing and praying in the swift moving waters. There was the constant sound of chanting mixing with the sound of workers making concrete steps for a big upcoming festival.Women could be seen carrying baskets of gravel down to the construction precariously  balanced on their heads.

So, the headmaster at the ashram, let’s call him Swami Yogadharma, held a meeting every few days where he would lecture about Hindu spirituality and advanced meditation techniques. He was a bit quirky and strange and got really irritated by people asking “stupid” questions. Well, I knew I was only going to be there for a few weeks so I decided to do just that! So after a lecture I came forward, waited for the crowd to leave and asked if I could talk to him.

The Swami's face and body cringed,“What questions do you have?”, he said obviously irritated.

“Well”, I said, thrown back by his attitude, “The most important question I have is this: What Proof is there that consciousness can exist apart from a body?”

“What proof”, he retorted ,”what proof!”, he was mad and borderline irate by now. His Yogadharmaness on full display! The steam was coming out from behind his ears and smoke was in his eyes. “You people come here and ask about proof! You need to leave! Get out of my ashram!”, Swami said while practically exploding with pent up aggression.

I was amused and confused by his odd behavior, and I almost wanted to laugh, but that would not have helped the situation. So I calmly said, “I think you misunderstand my question. I really want to know. I am not trying to challenge your position or anything.”

Well, I could tell by the look in his eye that the conversation was over, so I got up and left the meditation hall feeling quite confused by the strange encounter. It was several hours before I started to make sense of it.

I realized that probably a lot of people come to him and try to figure out “spirituality” with the rational mind, and that a lot of people probably try and challenge him as some kind of ego game. This would explain why he was so irate. It is probably also true that it is mostly westerners that do this. It was unfortunate for him that he didn’t realize that I was genuinely interested in his opinion.

I learned from this experience that the mind has a definite limitation when it comes to understanding spirituality. The mind is certainly very useful with problem solving and reductionist theories, but when it comes to the paradox of creation and the essence of life it fails. Only the heart can wrap itself around such magnificent and expansive experiences. This is the message that I tried to convey in the last blog: That you cannot approach God with the mind. It is only with the heart that this is possible.

All religions intuitively reflect this knowledge. In Buddhism for instance the nature of the creation is described as “empty”. This does not mean it is actually empty, but that words fall short in describing it, that the energy of life is elusive.

In the Tao Te Ching it says that the Tao that can be written is not the real Tao. This clearly means that words and ideas cannot describe the nature of God.

In Christianity you have a God that is all powerful, all knowing, and all everything. In a similar way this means that he is unknowable. How can we understand what it means to be beyond time and space, unlimited, and all powerful? We can’t. This is why the Christ is needed to be the bridge.

So we have the Gods of emptiness and the Gods of infinity, and from what little I know of the metaphysics of numbers, there seems to be a connection between that which is zero and that which is infinite. You could even say that they are the same. So the linear world of Judeo-Christian religion of the perfect creation and eternal life in heaven, comes together with the cyclical world of Eastern religion, of karma and reincarnation. They come together at a very special place that can only be known by the heart.

So this is what I was trying to explain:

“To understand spiritual experience you have to feel it with the heart. You have to experience it for yourself."

“This is the only way that leads to true understanding of God."

News from Haiti

I am sending a link to anyone interested in a first hand account of the earthquake in Haiti. The people of Haiti could use a little help.

http://rollingsinhaiti.wordpress.com/

text 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross