Thursday, April 10, 2008

Blogging Again

Hello to all you wonderful souls reading this! (Quick note: everything before this post is 4 years old.) I hope this can be a way that I keep in touch with you, though I'm sure it will often ramble out into various dimensions that may or may not interest you. Depends on my mood (and what music I'm listening to while I'm writing!) Seems like most times I blog I'm in a kind of melancholy, lonely mood. The last time I was blogging very much people reading it thought I was depressed but I was just showing one side of life! Might be the same this time around so don't be alarmed! Anyway I hope to balance that stuff out with interesting down-to-earth, day-to-day stuff. This one's gonna be rambly. Rambliscious.

So on to what's on my mind now....which is: will I ever stop feeling like I'm drifting and floating through this life? I don't remember ever feeling like I belong here, like, "Oh, yeah, I'm human, I'm American, I'm this, I'm that, so let's get on with it!" It's been much more like, "Man, how much longer do I have to be in this body? How much longer do I have to keep doing all this stuff? How much longer do I have to keep feeding and clothing myself and working at jobs and running on these tracks?

Maybe that sounds lazy and that's definitely part of it. Laziness is a vice of mine. It's not that I don't want to do things to help other people and contribute to the whole and pull my weight and then some. I don't know. I just want to be free. I want to be in the next world so much. I wouldn't wish for death, partly because of the sadness it would cause and partly because I don't pretend to be ready at all.

I feel like I've been pushing at the walls of self ever since I knew they were there. Sometimes I break through and taste the sweet fragrance of His Presence all around me, but then I fall right back into my selfish oblivion. It's those moments of small victories that have given me hope that happinessis possible for me. All else but this is ashes! Baha'u'llah is not exaggerating when He says things like that! All the crap, crap, crap! He calls it "the world." Every satisfaction it provides might as well be the exact equivalent of getting stoned or something as far as I'm concerned. It all works when you're in a trance state, fixated on those cravings and aversions, trying to milk the teet of whatever you desire before it's empty once again. Then it's on to the next diversion.

Ok, so that's all well and good. Actually if I wan't a Baha'i that would be it because I would be a priest or monk or rabbi or mullah or whatever. I would just roll with that as far as it could take me. I guarantee I would have been a frickin' kick ASS priest or something! Of course it's good all clergy is abrogated for this Dispensation. Try as they might, clergy as a whole are just too human to take on the burden of being a link between the individual or community and the Divine Unity. Fuggetaboutit!!

Nevertheless that leaves people like me kinda stuck. Are there other Baha'is out there, I wonder, that have trouble finding there way because they're the guy or girl who would be priest or medicine man or whatever and there's just no need anymore for that role?

So is there any solution to longing to burst into flames of the spirit and fly free above the brilliant meadows of the Kingdom of Abha, spreading the sweet savors of His fragrance to all souls whose path I cross, dispersing in the wind, moved by His breath, scattering in the breeze until all traces of self have vanished forever? I mean as opposed to what, day after day, is continuing to not be that, i.e. this life?

Suicide is not the answer. It leads to an opposite result. Asceticism is not the answer. It can't be reconciled with the need for servants of God to serve humanity. We already ruled out priesthood. Living at the World Center? Nah, that's like trying to find a loophole. Baha'u'llah commands action, integration with humanity, tireless work to transmit His healing message to all peoples, a lifetime of the utmost effort to the extent of my capacity to do the glorious work of the Cause.

My feeling right now is YES! Wow what an unbelievable privelage that I will never be worthy of! While I still have time I must do all I can! YES!

But stuff keeps getting in the way, stuff lodged in various places inside me. It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Ugh! It's sickening! I'm so tired of it! 'Abdu'l-Baha said that one of the desired effects of tests and difficulties is to make us weary of this world and cause us to long for the Kingdom. I'm not sure if He was at all referring to the way I feel but I do feel weary of this world.

Ok, so how do you attain the Kingdom even if you want it? All I can think of is to give up. Give up my desires. Give up my hopes. My dreams. My loves. My opinions. My personality. My interests. My quirks. My mannerisms. My cravings. My likes. My dislikes. My deep desires. My hobbies. My plans. My pleasures. My pain. My past. My future. My self.

What good has all of that done me anyway? Nothing compared to what He has done for me. What good has all of that done for others in my life? Nothing compared to what He has done through me for others. My only glimmers of peace and joy have come when I was somehow able to free myself from all those things and....be with Him.

I remember this one time (I may have told you this story) when I had been meditating all day in a retreat back in the day. I went for a walk in a really meditative zone, really on a higher plane, at least a little. I swear I was able to perceive things being communicated that had been absolutely invisible before. In particular there was this one bird singing. That song! Words beyond language! I felt I was witnessing the power of God to speak to us through all things at all times, uniquely each time, unfathomably beautiful and profound and glorious! I felt like I had never opened my eyes before and I just flickered them open for a moment. I can never forget what I saw.

When I think of a lifetime of "living martyrdom," daily conquest of self and complete sacrifice of all for Baha'u'llah,it seems like an unbearable, toilsome journey. Too hard! Too long! Too much! But then when I think of the alternative--a life of more of the same vacillation, regret, confusion, and terrible remoteness from Him--I realize that that is the real hell.

Do you ever feel like you keep holding onto so many aspects of your self because you just are afraid to let go? Or because you know others think those aspects are vital? Or because you lack the imagination, the willingness to believe that you can live without these things? What will happen if you just let go? Why do you have to be "you"?

We've learned so much by now! Even those of us who are only in our early or mid-twenties have learned so much! We know so much, and I'm not just talking about Baha'is. How much do we know that we haven't acted on? How simple are so many things that we convince ourselves are complicated?

What if all the things that mystics have woven the most illuminated tapestries of elucidation on are all at our fingertips and all we have to do is reach out and sieze them? Sieze them and never let go? What if all we have to do is throw off EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING and take firm hold of the cord of His kindness? What if that's really all there is to it?

The Blessed Beauty spoke these words: "O SON OF MAN! If thou lovest Me, turn away from thyself; and if thou seekest My pleasure, regard not thine own; that thou mayest die in Me and I may eternally live in thee."

He states this so simply. These words are truth. They are not a roundabout interpretation of truth. They are Truth. This is not a metaphor for what He wants us to do. It's what He wants us do! Without delay! If He says it is that simple, it's that simple!

"If thou lovest Me..."

"If thou lovest Me..."

"If thou lovest Me..."

If I love Him. If I love Him. If I love Him.

I love Him. I love Him. I love Him.

I love Him! I love Him! I love Him!

Love Him. Love Him. Love Him.

Him. Him. Him.

Baha'u'llah. Baha'u'llah. Baha'u'llah.

Baha'u'llah! Baha'u'llah!

Baha'u'llah!

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