Good.
Okay.

Welcome.
Welcome, everyone.
Lovely to be
without knowing
this open invitation,
always available to us,
like the love of our mother.

To rest,
resting as not-knowing.
This spacious embrace,
our true home.

So we invite ourself
to this loving presence,
which requires no effort,
no personal doing.

Because there is,
after all,
no separate personal self.
In love, in truth, all is one.

All is well.
All is love.
All is peace.

We are this peace.
Notice how everything
that appears to you,
appears out of
this formless presence.

And is perceived
by this invisible
aware presence.

And this perceiving,
perceives everything equally:
perceives the sunrise,
the sunshine,
perceives the breath,
sensations within the body,
thoughts appearing
and disappearing.

Events are unfolding
within this awareness.

From the perspective
of that which perceives,
it is all equal.

Meaning, it’s the same essence.
Like the various notes of a symphony.
They appear to be different
but they’re intertwined
in this symphony.

This appreciation,
this beautiful harmony.

And among the
various perceptions
which we perceive,
there is the sense of self
which appears to you:
The I Am.

It is like looking in the mirror:
I knowing itself,
face to face with Itself.

When this self,
which is facing itself,
is this borderless awareness.
Looking in the eyes of God,
looking in the absolute,
the vastness looking at itself,
knowing itself.

In this self knowingness
is the peace,
the peace of being.
Profound silence
which is the silence of presence.

Which is meditation.

This effortless,
silent presence,
pure beingness.

The ocean of being,
the bliss of the self.

In meditation there is no time.
The eternity of being is revealed.

In this silent presence,
knowing itself,
the unmanifest,
the causeless,
our true nature,
our true self,
which is
not a movement,
not a doing,
not a becoming.

No history.
The eye of the storm,
the heart of being.

And then there is
the dance of Shiva,
the creative aspect.

Nama Rupa,
the various names and forms,
the infinite colors of the rainbow.

Creation,
the play,
Lila.

This silent,
still presence,
dances world events,
and bodies and minds,
time and space.

In the sense of me,
which is also the dance of Shiva,
I am somebody,
the greatest disguise of God,
the masquerade,
the formless,
identifying itself
with form:

I am born.
I am a person.
I am somebody,
I am a particular personal self,
a hall of mirrors
where the one appears
as so many.

Appearing from a different angle
as a different person,
depending on
the angle of the mirror.

And the masquerade
includes forgetting.

Realizing that this me,
the sense of personal self,
is in fact God’s self,
universal self,
which we choose to personalize,
which we choose to weave
a personal narrative
around this sense of self,
to confuse
this universal sense of self
with a personal story
and a personal narrative
and a personal me-feeling,
while,
in fact,
there is nothing personal,
in spite of the impression
that there are personal experiences.

In fact,
all our experiences
come to us,
shine through this
particular body mind
from beyond,
from the source.

We are always contemplating
God’s thoughts
and God’s creation.

Not our own.
Because our personal-self
is limitless,
in spite of how strongly
we feel that our personhood
is limited and personal.

That is just illusion.

In this vastness,
every wave is made of water.

All the waves are one wave,
one water, one essence.

There is no personal coming and going.
It is just a mind impression
which appears to you.

A certain
mental process, a
mental vibration,
mental interpretation,
based on the belief
that Shiva has created,
the game that Shiva is playing,
that I am this and not that.

So can we perceive
this sense of me
from a neutral perspective?

Perceiving it
like we perceive
the sunrise and
the sunset.

Perceiving it like
we hear the songs of the bird
in the morning.
Perceiving this sense of me,
whichever way it appears to you.

As God’s light
shining onto your mind,
onto this body-mind,
which is yours;
but, in fact, it is God’s.

And yet it is yours.

Because you are
not separate from Shiva.
You’re not separate
from universal being.

So you can relax
this habitual impression,
this habitual narrative
that I am a personal limited self,
and be available and interested,
beyond the mind narratives,
to God’s whisper.

God’s whisper
whispering to you:
I am thou.
Thou are I.
All is well.

And we have available to us
life,
relationships,
interactions with each other,
interactions with the tribe.
How life is unfolding
in a particular way for each one of us,
changing from moment to moment,
sometimes challenging us.

But in every challenge
there is an invitation.
An invitation to freedom.

Freedom from the past,
this repetitive mind,
which repeats and repeats,
trying to anchor us
into its narrative.

Freedom to laugh
and be lighthearted.
Not to take things so seriously.

The freedom to play,
to love,
to expose oneself,
to be willing,
to recognize the shortcomings
of this particular body-mind,
to deal with each other
out of love and compassion
and friendliness
and fairness
and kindness.

To be giving,
generous,
to be available to miracles.

Every moment is a miracle.
Fresh and new.

We don’t need to
hold on to anything.

When everything comes to us,
from beyond;
we receive without asking,
and we give.

Because a river
is always flowing
and in its flow,
it nourishes the farms,
nourishes life.

The offering of the self:
you are offered the self
only so you can offer it
without holding on.

Okay, so…
if you have any questions,
anything that you would like to explore…