The Seer

Stand up, wake up, take note!
New possibilities have arrived
For these lives we had thought were our own.

The possible human stands free now
Of its past constraints,
Of the cage it grew up in, that served it well,
Trembling now with wonder at what it sees.

Old habits of mind fall away like old skin
No longer needed, no longer helpful
Outgrown and abandoned.

A different world, a new earth
Comes into view, fresh and alive
By a change of perception,
A new way of seeing.

We are joined together now
In a new maturity
A new awareness of how it is,
How we are carried on a new wind,
And a new response stirs.

~ by Alice Gardner, © 2009

The magic is in the doing
Not the thinking, reading
Talking or listening about
But in the get down hands dirty
Shirt off doing.

~ by Heather Saunders

If you’d like to take a fresh look at the story of Jesus and the meaning of Christmas, don’t miss Premanator’s Rap performance of, “The Reason for the Season.” on YouTube.

Assisted by ‘beatboxer’ — Edward “The Wild” West — black female artist/musician, Premanator, offers a Christmas rap at Adyashanti’s Intensive at Unity Church in California.

You can get CDs of Adya’s recent Christmas talks >>>HERE

From time immemorial, I am trying to wake you up but you don’t.

Not complaining, for such is not my nature; mine is to wake you up.
Not frustrated for I can’t be, just know that I have to wake you up.

I put melody in bird’s chirping, coolness in the summer breeze,
Burning heat in midday sun and deafening noise in monsoon thunder
To just do one thing, wake you up.

Spark in your first kiss, comfort in mother’s embrace,
Rush in your home run and the musky flavor in lobster bisque,
I did it all to do just one thing, wake you up.

Desire to own, taste, destroy, love and hate,
I placed so you’d WANT to wake up.
Also put the fear in you
So you’d keep on desiring all and to wake up.

I made life beautiful,
So you can love the beauty and wake up.
I made it miserable
So you will hate the misery and wake up.

Now I think it is time you woke up.
Don’t argue about genetics, Darwin, evolution and creation.
I made them so, don’t ask me how and when,
All I know is why, and that is to wake you up.

You say, you can’t or you don’t know how?
For millions of years, in thousands of ways
As guru’s, gods, priests, friends and lovers,
I have been telling you how.

As Krishna, I told you to see me, see you
Not yours who you kill, to rid the world of evil.
As Buddha, I told you to pay attention
Be mindful of sufferings (good, great and bad).
As Shiva, the Tantric, I asked you to find me
In all ecstasies, from sex to breath of fresh air.
As Nisargdatta Maharaj, I told you,
You are That whom you look for.

Do ask me why I want to wake you up?
That is simple; you are asleep.

Do ask me, who am I?
That too is simple; I am you, asleep.

~ by Sunil K. Vidyarthi

When we think about peace, everyone seems to have their own ideas about what that should look like. We certainly know what peace is not — war, violence, cruelty, lack, pain, suffering, noise, inner turmoil and so on.

The idea is that if we eliminate those bad things out of our personal (and also planetary) experience then we would be at peace. But all of this is only ideas.

Peace is something bigger than just having an outwardly gentle and quiet demeanor. We all know this, but is there something that we are calling peace that is behind all of our ideas about it?

Consider the poem below, written in a noisy airport. What sort of peace is being referred to in the poem that could include the noise of a busy airport? Is this peace achieved through lack of noise?

This peace does include harmony and justice and gentleness but doesn’t exclude the hubbub of everyday life at all. It is something that includes all of the tumult of the human condition with generosity and inclusiveness.

This is the peace that passes understanding referred to in the Bible. It can’t be understood by the limited and polarized mental processes that we have so long been habituated to use as filters in our perception.

Now, as we are able to open up our perception (noticing and relaxing the filters that are no longer helpful) we can begin to perceive directly this other kind of peace beyond all of our ideas about it.

At the Airport

Listening
To the hum of humanity
Above the silvery silence
Complete and at rest
Behind the sound.

Movement and stillness
Joining together
The dispersed strands
Of life’s fullness.
Each enfolding the other
In holy embrace.

~ by Alice Gardner

To live in the moment’s a well-worn routine
that most of the word has perfected;
for some, it’s the moment that’s already been,
for others, – the one that’s expected.

Yet no sort of magic can kindle anew
a past that is over for ever,
nor summon the future before it is due:
our moment is now – or it’s never.

So brief is the moment in which we may live,
and future or past it isn’t.
Whoever would know of what life has to give
must gratefully welcome the present.

~ Sent in by Peter Spinks — thank you Peter, who says, “I’m a lover of things Danish. On a visit to Copenhagen in 1975, a friend gave me “Grooks IV.” The author is Piet Hein — scientist, mathematician, inventor and poet … Danes rate him along with their butter, beer and bacon, among their national treasures.”

Old habits of mind
Want to box and label
What is seen,
Safely containing
All things, all experience,
In the known world.

But a new wind
Blows through the mind
Not looking for refuge from life.
Seeing beyond itself
Into the alive world
Of happenings and presences,
Mysterious and unfathomable.
So far beyond thought
That mind lies down
In the deepest bow possible
Dumbfounded and reverent.

Then rising again,
From its bow
In hopeful adoration
Only wanting to serve
What it doesn’t understand.

~ by Alice Gardner

One of the special hightlights in recent years at Adyashanti’s retreats has been a female rap artist named: Premantor. To the enjoyment of all, and the perplexity of some, Premanator has been offering her awareness-inspired rap music for nearly a decade — sometimes performing with beatboxer, Edward “The Wild” West,

Apparently, non-dual wisdom rap is what the Premanator is all about. Expressing insightful and sometimes irreverent spiritual messages through the medium of rap music, the Premanator has one directive: to annihilate the listener’s mind — or at least loosen its grip on the not-so-real dream state we call “reality.”

Influenced by enlightened sages throughout time (such as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj) and 80’s rappers (such as UTFO, Roxanne, and The Beastie Boys) the Premanator offers a unique and enlightening entertainment experience! You can see a YouTube Clip of her wowing her audience with: Who Are You?

There’s more information about this awakened rapper on Her Web Site.

You have to love
The antics of your mind,
Imagining life should only be sweet.
The bitter makes the sweet; and life is both.
It is whole, like you,

Before you think yourself to pieces.
Place this moment’s pain and confusion on the altar, too,
And give special thanks for such grace
That wakes you up from sleeping through your life.
Pain is greatly under-rated as a pointer to Unknowing,
yet greatly over-rated when taken as identity.

In this one moment,
Your eyes meet mine and there is
a single looking.
What is peering from behind our masks?
Can it touch itself across the room?
Place your palms together;
Touch your holy skin.
In another moment it will shed itself.
What will you be then?
What were you before you had two hands?
What are you now?
You cannot capture That
and place It on the altar of this moment.
It is the altar,
And this moment’s infinite expressions,
And the Seeing,
And its own devotion to itself.
You are That.

~ From the poem: “The Altar of This Moment” by Dorothy S. Hunt

I have this desire to drop everything
Things seem such a burden
Thoughts, concepts, beliefs, personality
So much effort involved in the maintenance of this.

When I allow, life flows
When I resist, life is a bottleneck.

This silent space seems custom made for me
After all these years with myself
I’ve never really known my Self.
Could I stand to die, not knowing?

Allow outward focus to gently change its course.
Come within, where everything and nothing merge.

Childhood patterns become adult patterns
Seemingly more sophisticated
But conditioned and genetic nonetheless.
Do patterns themselves have awareness?
What is aware of the conditioning?

I’m terrified of sleepwalking through this entire life
In an unconscious haze
Occassionally the alarm clock rings
But the snooze button is big, soft and easy.
My deathbed thought would be
‘Damn, I wasted this whole life’.

~ by Heather Saunders