Where We Get It Wrong

Albert Bierstadt  
The Shore of The Turquoise Sea


What we have built
in this and past ages
has been  on understandings
knowingness
and perspective
on how far we have come.

We have come a long way
we have further to go.
Nonduality speaks of this body and mind and emotion and world as not real
and yet, all that is
Is.
It is not an illusion
even though a thousand wise sages
have said
it is so.
It was so because they could not concieve it in its highest potential
and in their day
the foundation
of this present Age
was just that;
a foundation
and we have built more
and understood more
and now it is time
not to get stuck in what we
could only conceive of
in a seperation soaked world
where men ruled
and were dismissive
and abusive to half of the population.
This world is important
even if it has escaped our notice
and the larger challenge
that their august body of knowing
could not conjure
which was a still deeper challenge
to our knowing
and growing
and being which is that
the two shall become one
as the particle
and wave
contemplate the other
as the other
and as One.

This world is a suit
for the divine to wear.
It is here for us to learn and know.
That makes it important.
And if you think it is illusion
you will miss an important point,
you will continue to keep
our heaven
and earth
in separation.

We are here to wed these two together
like lover to lover
like spirit to flesh.
Surely they seem different
but they are all part of the same cloth.
They only seem different
but consciousness created them all
and not for no reason
or for jest.
This is how consciousness
has operated
through countless creations
and manifestations
of itself.
We say dreams are not real
because they cannot be touched
and yet
we know
they have a deeper reality
and we pay attention to them.
In much the same way
our world here
is such a dream.
It might seem to have a beginning and an end
but outside of time
time becomes irrelevant
and our world
is a solid pulsing
within an expanding present
always here
incapable of being undone
just as that bell from mass could not be unrung.

This is my challenge to you;
forget what has been given before.
Forget the authorities
and begin to plumb this world on your own.
Consider the heresy that you will know the truth
if you will but ask honestly
without agenda
and be child like
and free.
Take off your breathing aparatus
your fins
and your mask
and jump into this vast sea of consciousness with me
and embrace it
and be embraced by it.
Let its water soak so deep into you
that you fear losing yourself
until you realize in losing yourself
you find yourself
and drawing the ocean into you
like a lover
you remind your earthbound being
that this is heaven on earth
and everything is real.
Even your hurt feelings
and sense of suffering
which the monks and sages have all called illusion
which are part of this world
which you will heal and get over someday
are here
and have an identity
wound up within an invisible electromagnetic winding in the multiversal chorus
and thus are real
and can never be wished away
but must all be healed.Until we do this
my brother, sister, friend,
we will remain the walking wounded
and we will rely on an authority
to tell us what is real.

If you must follow the authorities of ages past
then this is what you still must do.
Until then
I bid you safe travels
and joyful awakening
when that time comes.
And when you are ready
I will be singing your name
happily
wondering
what took you so long
as we swim outside of time
and see
from another realm
how precious
and important
a suit of clothes this world is
to the divine in all of us
even if it means taking it off
so we can swim naked before All.