A student shares a profound shift in her experience of devotion and self-worth during meditation, and asks who it is that feels devotion, and to what.
A student shares a profound shift in her experience of devotion and self-worth during meditation, and asks who it is that feels devotion, and to what.
What a beautiful meditation. Thank you. Lately, your meditations move me to a place that feels new. I feel like I've always had it, but it's very present these days. My question has to do with devotion, or this experience of devotion to beauty that I'm experiencing. It gets me to tears all the time. Anytime you talk about the heart, or about allowing everything that is happening, what comes up for me is this experience of devotion to life and to beauty.
The beauty of the game of hide and seek is just so wonderful. This awe of wonderment. And today, what was interesting was that I have a Catholic upbringing. Many of the Christian teachings live in the framework of my mind, and often these Catholic sentences or teachings come to me. There is one I have often called upon. It's part of the church service from when I was a child. Obviously I'm not a practicing Catholic, but when I was a kid I used to go with my grandmother, and it says: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter my house, but only say the word and I shall be healed."
Today, for the first time, something flipped. I have said that to myself many times when I'm suffering, and for the first time it reversed. What I experienced was: I am one hundred percent worthy of you. Not only that, I am your church. I am the walls. I am everyone attending.
All this love, all this beauty, and suddenly it's just so overwhelming. But the question in the end is: who am I, the one who feels the devotion? And to what am I devoted? Because I know the teachings of this one reality, yet the experience is still of devotion to something else. So I don't know what to make of today's experience. Do you have anything to share?
I find it beautiful to hear you, and I think I'm not the only one. There wouldn't be non-duality without duality. So what beauty that there is this experience of the lover and the beloved. It's just something to savor.
The lover and the beloved
That makes sense. Another thing that has been with me lately is how beautiful it is to hide behind the belief, behind the doubt of loving life, when what I truly have is the biggest love for life. Just hiding right behind it.
And the fun of it! It wasn't that long ago you told me you didn't know whether you had love for life.
Exactly. I've been looking at this because, as we often talk about in non-duality, there is the fear of death, the fear of ultimate disappearance. That is something I explore. I have many fears. What is my relationship with fear? But death in particular, ultimate disappearance: how do I approach this one?
I think in the past few days I have been finding that maybe I was hiding behind the idea that, because of a lack of love for life, there was no fear of death. When in reality, in order to find that fear, I first need to realize that I have this immense love for life. And that itself is the hiding and seeking, in a way.
Hiding behind the absence of love
Yes.
It's beautiful. I don't know why I cry so much lately, but I know that these are just tears of immense beauty.
We can feel it. I can see it in people's faces.
We are the church. We are the walls. We are the service.
Thank you for joining and sharing. It's really beautiful. The savor, the joy of being in love with life.
Thank you for the beautiful mirror you are.