“All is full of love”
is all I have through my head right now.
Bjork sings this line so beautifully.
(feel free to play as background music)
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/43444347″>All is Full of Love – Bjork (Director:Chris Cunningham)</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/abcopenoutbacksa”>ABC Open Outback SA</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
My stomach still hasn’t settled.
At first I was upset with myself that I ate an hour before meditation… “No wonder my stomach is gurgling!”
However, it’s been four hours now… and four enzymes later.
It was definitely the what, not the when.
For some reason when I accidentally eat something I shouldn’t have, I figure, “Why not test out some other bad food choices?
“You know, like pulled pork with BBQ sauce, on a gluten free English muffin. Yeah, you haven’t had any kind of pepper or garlic in months, but it’s meditation night. I think enzymes can help.”
Underneath the chatter, you know, and you know this isn’t going to be good.
Umm, but it was good…
I can’t say I ever ate pulled pork in my life. The word combination just kinda freaked me out. I was a weird kid… and a weird adult.
But HeyZues Christ, pulled pork is like the adult version of Sloppy Joe’s!
So back to the story, one hour after devouring, and a few digestive enzymes later, I’m in one of the most peaceful places for me on this planet: my yoga studio.
The room itself brings you to peace, but the evening’s special guest, Dr. Bhagwan, my two teacher’s teacher, who is also my teacher, also brings you to peace, but guides you to go way past the mind into the deepest experience of consciousness that you’ll allow yourself to come to.
As he began this Q&A Session with silence, and then commentary, I heard my stomach disrupting this silence.
As Bhagwan spoke about leaving the mental state, into this meditative state, that one must forget the body/mind, I thought, “If I don’t outsmart my stomach with fidgeting movements and soft belly punches, the acoustics of this high ceiling are going to amplify the apparent cat fight that is going on in my stomach!” REOW! “I knew BBQ sauce was a bad idea!”
The duality, the conflict, this is exactly what Bhagwan was speaking about. The mind creates duality, conflict: problems. We must get past the mind, and once we do, we can say goodbye to problems. It seems so far fetched, but when he breaks it down, all you can do is think, “I need to be where you are, man. You’re right! It’s my bloody brain!”
I so wanted to let go of my body, but I was afraid of what it might do if I didn’t help settle it to silence. I wasn’t worried about my body doing something too embarrassing, but this cat fight was rather distracting. I even tried to use my Jedi Mind Tricks and sent a message through the ether, “Start with the questioning! C’mon already, I need to stealthily get out another enzyme!”
There were only three questions asked from the crowd this evening:
1- What is the difference between meditation and mindfulness?
Bhagwan explained that all he can do is describe what meditation is, and that she would have to discern the rest. His definition was so perfect, I pulled out my pen and pad,
“Meditation is a state beyond the mind.”
…give it time to marinate… mmmm…. marinate, but not BBQ sauce, pa-leese!
So many people try to sell us guided meditation, and meditation apps, but these are not meditation. Those are imagination and concentration, not meditation.
The second question…
2- You speak of silence being it, but how come you used so many words in the beginning of this session?
(You could see some cracks of smiles from his long-time followers, for we all know that Bhagwan would much rather prefer sitting in silence for all of these events.)
Bhagwan answered her question without an ounce of his ego involved. He went on to say, and I liked, so I jotted:
“Silence is the language of God. In silence there is a direct communication.”
…give it time to marinate… mmmm….
The last question, my question.
I didn’t plan on asking something, but things started to formulate as I listened…
I thought to myself, “Bhagwan talks so much of the mind, getting past the mind, as if some kind of silence is out there, past the mind, but in my yoga practice and teachings, I find that silence is best found once the mind is quiet, and the heart is open. This man rarely ever talks about the heart, yet he has the quote, “The heart speaks in silence because only in silence is there clarity and love.” So I know he knows this, but why doesn’t he teach this more often? Is it okay to teach this?”
So a mic gets handed to me, and usually I get nervous in a setting like that, but the words came out, “Is it okay to use the heart as a stepping stone, from the mind to silence?”
He had to reformulate my question, and he asked it better than I could have worded.
His heart and face lit up. “That’s it. That’s where the silence is. You are not talking about the emotional heart, the heart that tells us how we’re feeling from our thoughts. You are talking about something deeper than that, right?”
In my mind I thought, “Yes, the spiritual heart. It’s location (it’s physical location) is on the right side of the physical heart.”
The Hridaya
Bhagwan continued, “It’s okay to use the heart to explain this, because when we are in the heart we are in a state of being: our being-ness, not thought. Even when we point at ourselves and say “me”, we point at the heart. That is pure consciousness. That is who we are.”
…don’t rush, let it marinate…
You could finally feel the love in the room. What was once a room of students eager to understand, was now a room full of understanding.
I took to the mic again and used the phrase that he described multiple times in the beginning of the session: “time and space.” When he spoke about getting beyond the mind, he explained that we get beyond time and space, because both are constructs of the mind.
I asked, “So if there’s no time and space, then the heart is everywhere?”
At the time, I literally felt as if I was David in Steven Speilberg’s A.I., asking Dr. Know about the blue fairy… as if I had cracked the system.
The whole room swelled with love, as if everyone in the room finally felt what he was saying. They could all feel it, we were in it, together: pure consciousness. Non-thought, non-duality: there was no room for any of that in the swelling of love.
He explained, “No one has ever asked this question before: Why was it all started? It was all started in love.”
We all sat in this Love for who knows how long, until I realized I still had the mic, and said, “Thank you.”
More silence occurred, and no more questions were needed that evening.
In this love swell, I could finally let go of my body, and I dove into my heart, into pure consciousness, actual thoughtlessness. That is quite a state of being, rarely obtained. Even the growling cats were calm for this final meditation.
I left quietly, taking a little appreciation from, and returned some to, my teacher. I felt a remarkable sense of clarity as I crossed the street.
Driving off, I opened the windows, as well as the moon roof, and pondered, “It’s funny, because he’s teaching the right thing, the real thing, real meditation, silence, but if I were to teach this, would I teach Love? The more Bhagwan says to get away from thought, the mind battles with this idea. We mistakenly think we have to get out of ourselves, but the more we tune into the spacious awareness that we have deep within, we touch the truth, the essence behind it all, and we experience the teaching.
I’ve seen Bhagwan explain this mindless state to so many people, but what if we just brought everyone right to love? No questions would be needed.
To close, the cats finally went to sleep.
Now, if they were Schrodinger’s cats, that is another story.
the gluten free yogi 