A Call of the Senses

The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.

― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

I'm inspired by re-reading the Bhagavad Gita for the second time, sharing sparks of the heart/mind with a friend soul to soul - unpacking its wisdom in ways that include this person(ality) called Annette and the intellectual capacity and property of this (vo)luminous mind. Still, to know completely, my personality needs to relax its grip on what this knowledge means, to allow something else to rise to the surface - to become clear.

I imagine it like an Alka Seltzer of encapsulated emotions, memories, and perceptions plopping into a clear glass of awareness contained by what these words are pointing “toward”.

If attention chose to follow those emotions, perceptions, and memories to their death (destination), we would find ourselves on a heroic battlefield fighting on behalf of this body (of ideas and truth) that is separate and needs defending. We miss the duty completely.

The very idea that this feeling is “what” we are can disrupt us from being in the flow of “what is” happening here, now. (The way my attention was just pulled a second ago when Henry started barking; attention had to look away when the ego mind said, “Someone’s at the front door.” )

We can only pay attention to one object at a time, but awareness is ever-present.

Without awareness, we might be unable to notice the tension between real-time on-demand (who is at the door) and eternal devotion (what is this threshold). I could easily have been derailed and rerouted from sharing this profound, vital, and subtle message:  it takes a whole lot of Love - unconditional caring, compassion, forgiveness, and courage) to notice what these words and this intention are pointing toward - you come from the capacity of this Love.

We are reminded that the highest power of Cosmic Wisdom (the eternal somatic and cognitive data of our collective knowledge, personal experiences, and shared responsibility) is empowered when united with the Divine Intuition (infinite capacity and conscious awareness) that uses it.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna reveals to Arjuna that the “disunited mind … is far from wise.” He tells us, “do not let the mind follow the call of the senses. Do not follow the lower forms.”

So, what are the lower forms?

The lower forms are drenched in desire, in everything that has to do with this life - all phenomenon that appears, which is measurable and subject to time - which cause our senses to cling to the times and potions that satiate a manifold of sensory desires and habits.

In the way the 5 elements manifesting through the earth, wind, fire, water, and ether are experienced as touch, sound, smell, taste, and sight, there are also 5 spiritual senses manifesting through action, intention, faith, truth, and insight which are then sensed cognitively as matter, sensation, perception, conception, and consciousness. These allow us to travel, to spark passion and come into relationships, grow with the world (not into it).

This relationship begs us to consider how the world is our home and to remember how important it is to take care of the place that nourishes us - and offers us a place to rest, no matter our name title, color, or education.

… to ask, “Who, then, is creating this false sense of boundary, and on whose behalf?" And, “How might the senses that dominate my beliefs and memories and stuck emotions be thwarting me from actioning and expressing myself and the destiny of these false boundaries?”

As an observing mind becomes aware through the manifestation of these words that are pointing, the answer seems simple: dissolve the wall, the mind will sink and the heart will open.

But when we are on the inside inhabiting these passions that are tethered neurologically and hormonally to these bodies, when we are armored in the stories we tell about life, we get lost in a battlefield of complexity and in reasons that are unreliable, and stuck justifying this desire and the action that it demands.

For the mind alone, it's not easy to see through the senses that are coming together to define its form - it’s not easy to be Me.

“The disunited mind” being “far from the wise” is a message from Krishna (as the earthly form of the incarnation of God) cautioning us to find or notice or be aware of the attachments that cause us to feel trapped in life, in the conditions of this form or these ideas or these beliefs or trapped in emotions. The Divine requires a courageous challenge, a humble investigation, and a brave question:

What are my assumptions about life what are they attached to, and how are these assumptions consuming my attention and becoming real?

How do we free ourselves from attachment?

First, we need to be present, and connect to ourselves - our bodies of behavior, beliefs, and “be”longings. We need to connect to insight - to that which is unaffected by what our eyes see on the outside, or by what we remember on the inside that might trigger certain habitual responses and dangerous behaviors on the outside. This task is also asking us to rise to our sense of duty - to our dharma and to our responsibility to and for each other (and this mother Earth, Gaia).

I know this tension in the subtle ways I’m troubled again upon my father's return from Greece, feeling stuck in the middle of joy (that he's back home and that he's safe), and also feeling triggered by the very clear reminders of the limitations of my gender in his eyes, the way he views me.

I can't get stuck in how he views me because when I do, I get stuck in defending “what I am not”; and in defending “what I am not”, I am not able to be fully present in the joy that is also readily available in “what I already AM”.

This duty, therefore is one of God to Soul and of Soul to God.

It's asking us to be able to turn toward that from which we come and allow that to lead us - to shine through us in loving, colorful, and textured ways and to have faith in that illumination - that we all come from the same Source - Neti, Neti -  not a place, not a body - and we are reminded not to get so caught up about what everything looks like on the outside, so we can be available for the subtle signs guiding us on the inside.

We are challenged by Socrates (whose name means “whole, unwounded, safe + power”) to “Know Thyself”  - to turn in, to come home and “be whole”, face-to-no-face. And that it is the intention (to heal) and the devotion to this turning that becomes the (safe) doorway of awakening or what's often called self-actualization.

No matter what you call this shedding of the body or this sleeping or this awakening, what is the same in all wisdom traditions is that there is a process and hierarchy of thinking, senses that activate knowingness to beingness, and a knowledge of the terrain that can help us navigate skillfully through the most difficult times.

What, then, is the mind disunited from?

When the mind is overtaken by desire (by an ego clinging to this story or this identity or this sensation of passion (suffering) or the cessation of that passion (addiction) - it no longer serves its highest capacity - it is disunited from the heart of the matter (and becomes overwhelmed and vested in unloving thoughts).

At the same time, the mind is disunited from the (learning of the journey) and becomes too attached to the destiny - to the goal and to what things will look like. Without presence, we are unable to be forgiving toward our own forgetfulness which keeps us separated from the wisdom that can guide us.

This “world that you desire” is here right now. “It exists. It is real”.

However, we can’t see it because we are seeking to make it real on the outside when what it is asking “of” us is to turn and to be alive with it on the inside through the skillful actions outside.

We are asked to cultivate the insight and the courage to turn toward God - not for strength but for the creative power to see that God is already giving us what we need to find our strength in the life under our feet.

No matter what life looks like - no matter the color of our skin, no matter our gender, no matter our circumstances or what happened - we are tasked to welcome what God gave us, and become intimate with it, in order to see the next step clearly.

If you are hearing this message - Be True! -  you already have what you need to wake up. Stop numbing this Call with theories and beliefs, or drugs and booze or work or some idea of God, or whatever keeps you away from how this makes you feel — this seeking outside yourself for what you already are, and the pain and longing that are aching for your return.

The longing is not for something outside of yourself. It's not for something that somebody else has. It's not in the idea of how things should be.

We have to stop worshipping these things that cause us to distort and objectify

what we are. What we are is no object. What we are comes from the capacity of everything ...  the Creator of everything and therefore useful. Just like my conversation with Bill today, as I was teary-eyed in the foyer talking about what my next move will be or how I was feeling confused and unmotivated:

Every moment is holy - in the service of awakening frustration to the opportunity of being free - pearls of wisdom formed by the grit of an ocean of woe.

If only we could open our arms and put down our swords.

In not following the call of the lower senses, what is being asked of us?

To see through the many veils and masks of deceit, one needs to be conscious, and aware in daily life through mundane, tedious small actions; and to be fully awake and graciously alive in them in order to notice, for example, how I value my father, who gets up every day toiling with these daily mundane tasks that take him hours, unable to button his buttons, or attend to the simple needs of his body.

And in order to do that, I have to be clear.

I have to arrive with the intention to serve God, Love, Peace, and Presence. I cannot allow these thoughts of less than and the idea of my duty )and how I'm not valued or validated) to get in the way of that, yet I must welcome and Love them and remind them of Who they serve.

These effervescent, Divine experiences are asking me - us -  to practice. To practice being silent  - to practice being reflexive and inclusive, to open up space and allow these thoughts to drop into the glass of awareness, to surrender and plop in, to be dissolved and to be held - to be concentrated in the power of this stillness.

And it's asking us to embody life, to be in flow - to connect with the body - to move it, and to invoke wisdom through Nature, through the experiences of being One rather than those that cause us to feel separate.

That means understanding how this Being Human works - how this organism comes together, how the five senses engage the five dimensions - and how to have them work for you, with you, and in service of the highest power of YOU rising into the world.