I made this video during an online community council towards the beginning of the Covid years. I was mainly speaking to the beautiful Hafiz(ish)* poem, “Dance When You Are Broken Open.” This is beautiful guidance about how we are being called by the nameless and voiceless caller within and how to respond to that calling, even if and especially if times are difficult.
I realize that I have focused on the difficulty of these times a lot in the previous newsletters. Still, it is the question that so many people are approaching me with: How do we live in times of such intense uncertainty, fear, anger, and confusion and live a life of sanity while practicing the art of holding to the subtle and exquisite movement of the heart? The question may then arise, and it is one of the oldest of human questions: “What then is real?”
Here, I opened this conversation:
Of course, I nor anyone else can answer that question for another. This is especially true as every person makes a choice on how they will choose to perceive the reality of their life. I will be looking at and sharing this profound conversation over the coming months.
This question becomes increasingly complicated in this time of “Influencers” who have as a captive audience all those who get trapped in the pit of the “doom scroll.” But it is not only the doom scrolling that entraps a person. Because it is all-pervasive and pretty damn persuasive, even the social media input that seems spiritual, enlightened, and positive has its own power to manipulate, birth, and create the zeitgeist of the time. It is so effective that it has reached a summit of persuasion wherein people are being persuaded into a world vision that they think is of their own choosing. So, again, what is real, and how do we find it? (I recognize the paradox that even in creating these newsletters, I am in some way participating in this, but I will do everything I can to be clear and honest here.)
I want to turn now to the great mystical poet Kabir. It speaks from a time before any of this existed quite accurately to a spiritual confusion of our time. It is a short poem, and I will talk about it a bit more in this video:
To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveler before you, there is no road:Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore? There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it. No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford! There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place that shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught in that emptiness. Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold is firm. Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere, Kabîr says: "Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that which you are."
I hope you got something beautiful from this newsletter. As I have said, this is for you. If you have any questions, comments, ideas for future talks, or poems you would like me to read, do let me know. See you next time.
Richard
* I use and add the term “(ish)” to poems when the author claims them to be from a notable figure from the past, but they are either transliterations or are “in the spirit of the poet.”
For those of you who have chosen to become paid subscribers:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Medicine of Your Life - notes from behind the Mesa to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.