March 11, 2023 - A Lotus Flower

Rohatsu broke my brain in the best way possible. Then, weeks later, it became the worst way possible. What I experienced convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is there no separation between me and the world, but that I AM the world experiencing itself, I am the pure mirror in which reflections arise. Totally obvious, beyond obvious, and beyond easy to miss. Totally liberating, but also totally damning. It turns out when you step into Oneness you don’t get to pick which things are a part of You and which things aren’t; everything is included, bar none, including all the sludge and muck of the world. And since the world and me aren’t any different, all that crap I see is just me too. So it’s my responsibility now. What a bunch of bad news wrapped in good news!

The depth of the experience left me with nowhere else to run either. Part of me wants to forget, and believe me I have tried, but some bells it seems can’t be unrung. But that part of me that wants to forget is completely necessary too.

How so? Leading up to Rohatsu it was as though my eyes and mind were filled with light, but my entrails were still lurking in the dark. This process has been beyond painful for me. Even though I need it more than anything my guts won’t let the Light in unless there is literally no other option. Like an addict hitting rock bottom before he can make a new choice, I am fighting like hell to keep this project of small self at the center. I know I’m being ridiculous, but I just can’t seem to help it.

But that fighting the Light, fighting with Love and Healing is giving me the experience I need to be of real use. That resistance in me is the same resistance at play in the world causing so much imbalance and destruction. Without this grounding experience of wrestling with my self-centered ego how could I possibly show up in the world in an authentic way? Without deeply understand the disease first hand, how can I work to administer the cure?

Having this final showdown with God is showing me how to walk through life being totally myself, nothing more and nothing less. And I need all of me, the demons and the angels, the putrid sucking darkness and the brilliant clear light. Nothing else will ever satisfy. In some mysterious way they work together to create the ideal conditions for the Lotus, a beautiful flower blooming right here in this rich, stinky sludge.

Unless I can get it into my bones that how I treat you is how I treat me, because every single thing is me, Oneness will stay in the realm of my mind, an isolated experience or spiritual vacation. That has its place too, but its not what I want. I want to walk like the Ancients, moving in that beautiful sphere of Living Awareness, where not a speck of dust can settle, and every step a moving prayer that blesses the Earth.