Dancing to the music: INSIDE THIS LIFE WE’RE LIVING

First, a letter concerning a discussion I had about Alzheimer’s with Dr. David Hilfiker over at www.davidhilfiker.blogspot.com. He’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and he’s blogging bravely with first-hand reports from the inside, so to speak, titled “Watching the Lights Go Out.” That resonated with me in light of my own adventure in reporting the inside story of aware living on NDL!

And then I’d like to share a poem that emerged when my wife Alla and I received the news of the death of Susie, a dear life-long friend in Paris yesterday…Be well! James

Hi David,
IT seems that this question: “What’s really going on?” is the key to our learning about living and dying, no matter what our body/mind health diagnosis. I commend you for not only bravely exploring Alzheimer’s from the inside, so to speak, but also for your willingness to move outside into greater truths. By truths, I mean an opening out – to the large questions, not only of science, faith or beliefs, but also of reality. “What really is going on here?” is our universal plea.

That’s the question that started me out on an international quest four decades ago. And it turns out that my answer was that I needed first, always and only, to turn inside; to uncover my inner reality. To recognize that I am much more than my amazing body and its senses, and a lot less than my fantastic mind and its’ egoic pretensions. Much more and much less!

Indeed, it seems that we – those of us who are coming more into contact with our mortality – are willing and able to allow our deepest perceptions. To touch into immensity. And to see the real need to move beyond our conditioned looking at life and things with the minds labeling. To really see that mystery – the very real paradox of our human and divine nature. Could it mean we live not only in time but simultaneously, in the timeless? And perhaps we may also recognize for our self that their isn’t much we actually know about what’s real and going on here…unless?..

Unless, of course, we’re actually, simply living here. Then we find that questions large and small, fall away. And the need for any answers that attended them falls away too.

We are left with the urge to love, and the joy and wonder of simply being here.

******

To Susie…
The Undying Rose

The undying rose is blooming;

All growth needs new shoots.

And losing autumns’ stillness

Love’s seeds sewn will flower

On and on in infinite life.

*

Then let us dance this dance

All the way out my friends

And when it’s time for home

Turn fully, freely, tenderly

into our abiding self-nature.

And know that knowing

without understanding.

That peace that lies in all things

eternal, effulgent, ineffable.

That being infinitely here

and now and always,

like a spring rose, beginning.

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