Opening Into What's Beyond With A Yes To Love.

I was reflecting on our time together this morning and what came up was this Rumi poem.

Because something like this was a bad translation.

Out beyond all wrongdoing and right doing there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in this grass the world is too full to speak about.

Here ideas,

Beliefs,

Language,

Even the idea of other make no sense.

This is what we're all resisting.

This is what the ego resists.

Because in this we can't have control.

We can't figure out what to do.

We can't make sure that our image is appropriate.

We can't,

The feeling is I can't play my role properly.

So I won't survive without my ideas,

Without my beliefs,

Without knowing wrongdoing and right doing.

But in that realm it's suffering.

And where our whole lives are consumed by our ideas of wrongdoing and right doing.

And we feel trapped by our own projection,

By our own language,

By our own ideas,

Our own beliefs.

And of course other shows up and then we feel a victim of that somehow.

We can project that it's not me,

It's the outside.

I try to support you to have a moment of direct experience of this field,

Of your own being.

So that you can discover for yourself it's not what you think it is.

It's not out of control,

It's simply life running by itself,

Quite naturally.

It's not scary really in the end.

It's warm people say,

It's warm,

It's home,

It's loving,

It's empty,

It's open.

But hearing me say that it can just become more language and more ideas and more beliefs.

So don't believe me.

It's been an interesting journey.

And I know that I've realized today that a part of me never really believed that I could live in all of who I am.

And as that becomes more real,

This primal fear is here.

Yes.

Surrendering the one that I believe to be,

Believe myself to be.

You've said to me before that I,

I don't know,

Can't remember the words,

But about dying and it's like,

Yeah,

No,

No,

I'm not afraid of dying.

And I really believe that and I still really believe that.

But it's different,

It's different letting go of it as I'm alive,

Of who I am.

And now the awareness that that actually is possible,

Or the belief that is actually possible,

Has really formed for me.

I didn't know it hadn't formed before.

Yes.

Obviously it hadn't.

It hadn't become real.

I think what it sounds like it was a belief,

Now it's something deeper than a belief.

You actually can feel that it's not just possible because it's already here.

That's the crazy thing because I know that too.

And at the same time,

It's here and so is this belief in who I am,

Is this mind actually more so than the physical body.

Yes.

And it's that,

It's that belief that that's the dying that feels really scary.

Yes.

This is such good news,

Really.

So when the mind stops mysteriously,

Then who are you?

There aren't any words.

Yes.

Is any effort required to be yourself,

To be who you are?

And in surrendering to that,

Even though it's terrifying,

What's the result?

Dear is still here.

Yes,

Go on.

What else is here?

I don't know.

Beautiful,

Find out.

Because that's what happens is the terror wants to make itself,

It's really the ego wants to be the center of attention.

It really wants to do a dance and say,

Well,

Look at me,

I'm really important.

But it's actually just a veil of something else that is far bigger.

And I would say it's far more important.

So without fighting with the terror or trying to wrestle with it or trying to get around it or trying to surrender or whatever,

Just see what else is here.

What's what holds the terror?

What's the terror arising in?

Tell me about this nothing.

It's huge,

It's expensive.

It's just nothing.

How does nothing feel about the terror?

It doesn't have an opinion.

Yes.

So the question here,

I like to look out for my own clarity,

Is which one is coming and going and which one is always here?

That to me seems like an essential question.

Something to realize.

Can you get a sense of that?

Yeah,

Still there,

Nothing is just stillness and it's always here.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Terror comes and goes.

Even if it's extreme.

Even if it's full blown panic.

It's still,

If you reflect on your life,

You can see that there,

That it comes and it goes.

But the stillness,

This emptiness,

Nothingness is always here.

That's something essential about that realization.

Because there's,

Then you can see what's really reliable.

Yeah.

And you can see which one do you give yourself to?

Which one do you love?

Which one do you write poems about?

Which one do you talk to people about?

Which one do you,

Are you curious about?

Not to ignore necessarily one of them,

But to see where your attention is.

Yeah.

And the mind comes up.

So if you don't touch it?

It feels like an effort not to touch it.

It feels like that at first.

Because you're habitually pre-conditioned for going into your mind.

And this is a great place for discipline.

Because I know that you're quite disciplined in other arenas of your life.

And you can look at it in the same way,

Like whether it's about health or,

To start to see that,

That going into your thoughts is a certain kind of toxicity.

Because it goes against what you love and what you want.

Because it's a way of turning away from this moment,

Turning away from the mystery.

And turning into a two-dimensional attempt to capture the universe.

And to say,

What if you say no to that?

As a way of saying yes to the truth.

That'll turn the heat up.

It already did.

I did that because it's more of a story.

It's what the heat's about.

Good,

Yeah.

So that's it.

It feels like there's a fight.

Yeah.

It's your ego is fighting to survive.

And while you believe that there really is a fight happening,

That there really is an ego.

Then it feels very serious.

There really is no ego.

It's just a trick.

It's just a belief.

What's fighting what?

See,

It's all,

It's mind fighting mind.

A belief fighting another belief.

All the while,

Emptiness is here.

Consciousness is here.

Life is here.

And it has no problem even with the fight.

Because reality has no problem with imaginary fights.

So when you're ready to stop playing these games that feel very intense,

Feel very real.

And fighting,

You know,

It's like fighting is a very good survival strategy.

You know,

A lot of us are fighters.

There's a stubbornness to not die.

To not be walked over by other people,

To not be taken advantage of.

And that's a good quality,

That kind of fight that we have in us.

But if it's unfettered fight,

Then you could be being offered flowers and you say no.

It's like you're being offered yourself.

And you're fighting that.

I've always been stubborn.

Yes,

I know.

And in a way,

I would say,

You turn that stubbornness to the truth,

To not thinking,

To not touching your thoughts.

Thinking will happen.

But you'd be stubborn to not touch it,

To stay in the field beyond wrongdoing and right doing.

Which maybe is a different for you.

It's to be in the field of not knowing or not judging or not questioning.

If you don't question or you look at the flavor of your thoughts,

And you say,

Okay,

What if I stop that?

It's more,

It's more a field of nothingness,

Actually.

It's yeah,

That's where I'm being called.

It's not even a conscious desire that came up for me this morning.

It's like,

What am I doing?

Is this what I even want?

Yes,

Good.

Yes,

That's right.

On some moments,

I felt like I was being pulled by my legs into it.

While I was trying to get away.

And so realizing that the force of the pulling was so strong,

I thought,

What am I doing fighting it?

That's the real question I think you need to ask yourself.

Because you've discovered this.

I mean,

It's good to question.

I always encourage people to really question,

Is this really what I want?

So that you're not here because it's a spiritual thing to do or to meet friends.

Doesn't feel like I have any choice.

Beautiful.

Then what are you fighting that for?

See that that then doesn't make sense.

You have no choice.

Yeah.

When are you going to realize that?

About now.

So Eli would say,

Turn your head backwards and down facing in a direction you're already falling.

That's a yes.

That's the yes to love.

It's the yes to whatever that is,

That emptiness,

That field.

It's a yes to that.

And you let your mind be melted in that,

Merged in that.

Let it be overwhelmed by that.