As I
sat on my redwood perch in the deep Forest of Nisene Marks yesterday, I allowed
my head to gently rest on my chest, and closing my eyes, I feel asleep in the
absolute silent stillness of the forest, far off any electrical grid,
surrounded by sixteen “offspring” of three mother redwood trunks, cut down
between 160 and 100 years ago. I don’t remember what I dreamed but as I awoke,
before opening my eyes, I realized that we are gods come down to the earth and
in these bodies, seeing it all through these eyes, living it all in these
bodies and their lives, which we forget are also our divine lives. I opened my
eyes then and saw the forest as if I were a newborn babe and it was all
absolutely new to me. I deeply inhaled in utter amazement at the beauty of the forest
and moved my old, wrinkled hands before my eyes, as if I had never seen them
before. They too were amazing to me. I climbed off the great tree trunk and,
with my walking “stick,” clambered down the steep twenty-foot path, and then
out of the forest to the fire trail and lot where my car was parked. Everything
I saw and smelled stayed “new” pretty much until I got to the parking lot maybe
twenty minutes. By then I was already thinking that I had to go by either Gayle’s
or Dharma’s and get a nice meal for my wife and myself. Pesto pasta from Dharma’s,
I decided. I could talk with my old friend, Josh, behind the counter, or
exchange a joke with Bernie, the owner, whom I knew, what, 35 years ago, when
he started McDharmas, and was sued by McDonalds and had to change the name.
Babba Hari Dass, a teacher of Ram Dass, and guru of his ashram at Mt. Madonna,
a few miles south of here, had died. Josh told me about his cremation and how
he got to place a carnation on the exact spot of Babba’s heart before he was
burned up. That’s why I like talking to Josh.
It would
be good if we could remember just who we are. Gods, pure beings, are looking
out through these eyes of ours. If we could realize this and keep realizing it
in our lives, the world would be a much different place. I do not subscribe to
religion or to such belief in religious gods, which are presented falsely but
perhaps well-meaning clergies, who are nevertheless corporate-minded, bottom
line in mind, which is a bit harsh because there are good people and aware
people everywhere, including there. One has to trust the sorrow within oneself.
We know on some level our plight as human beings. We feel the split between
spirit and flesh as though the twain cannot meet, though we know also that it
does and must, for here we are in the world of matter as most divine beings of
pure spirit. We must learn to live as if all of us, each of us, were worthy of
love and kindness. It would seem that trusting others in this kind of existence
would be utterly impossible, for people do not even bother to know themselves enough
to come even close to trusting or knowing themselves. Instead they allow
themselves to be lead like sheep to the slaughter by those who would manipulate
them to their own ends. Sometimes there are no reference points for us.
Sometimes there is nothing online to explain our thoughts or what we know to
us. There is no backup. We have to move forward in our thinking, our own
thoughts—divine thoughts, if you will, that arise from some place within us of
which we are totally unaware. These thoughts are which ultimately move the
world to a better place. And we are thinking them and understanding them even
now at this moment. We cannot give up on ourselves, on our ability to know
things, to know what to do, to know what is right. Such is our destiny.
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