Day 8: The Heavens

The Heavens, Böblingen, Germany, July 2010,

Nikon D5000, 35mm focal length equiv. 27mm, Exposure 1/800 sec @ f14, ISO 200, no flash

© Steven Crisp [Click on the photo to enlarge]

You can see where the concepts all came from.  If you try to place yourself back in a time more than two, three, or four-thousand years ago.

You look up and see great sights, awe-inspiring starry nights, powerful lightning storms, and of course the amazing power of our natural world.  This is where the gods live, and later, apparently just one God.

But we realize that words are just labels, and the labels just identify human concepts.  So what would "heaven" really be like, and where does it exist?  

How about right here, right now, at this very moment, in a state of mind that is spaceless, timeless, and completely at peace.

Gotta get me to Heaven.

• Donation:  to Bedford Animal Shelter which is a great place to adopt a pet.
• Exercise:  Went on a vegetarian tour of Vaihingen and Stuttgart today with Carol and Frito; walked 4.26 miles (110 mins.)

Update #1:  Just found these pictures of Earth taken from the International Space Station in my e-mail, and thought they would put the exclamation point on just how far we have come in the past few generations, let alone, a few thousand years.  Enjoy.

Update #2:  Just remembered this classic that I also thought was somehow appropriate.

Imagine -- John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven,

It's easy if you try,

No hell below us,

Above us only sky,

Imagine all the people

living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,

It isnt hard to do,

Nothing to kill or die for,

No religion too,

Imagine all the people

living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,

I wonder if you can,

No need for greed or hunger,

A brotherhood of man,

imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say Im a dreamer,

but Im not the only one,

I hope some day you'll join us,

And the world will live as one.

It's a mystery

Frosty edges, Amherst, NH, November 2006, HP Photosmart R817, Exposure 1/40 sec @ f2.8, ISO 200, no flash © Steven Crisp [Click on the photo to enlarge]

It is a mystery, this life of ours, is it not? So many processes we do not fully understand. So many connections we can't begin to visualize. So we make up gods and godesses to fill in all of our gaps. Like the ice crystals on the edge of this leaf, even they are but a coating on the rich and complex edge of our universe of understanding. It goes so much deeper. It is much more intricate.

Should we try to understand? Well, why not. Why not let our scientific and spiritual inquiries takes us just as far as they can. And I suspect, we will add more to our already encyclopedic knowledge. And yet, even that will just illuminate how much more there is that we do not really understand.

So feel free to continue on with these quests. Full speed ahead at making this world a "better" place to be. Just keep in mind everyone and everything as you do so. For we really are all just a part of the same mystery we call life.

And keep in mind that even during such pursuit of knowledge, sometimes we need to step back from our conceptual understanding of life, and just live.

Being your true self, being your true nature, is different than experiencing it with thought. Realize that you are the mystery, and that you can’t really look at the mystery because you are only capable of looking from the mystery. There is a very awake, alive, and loving mystery, and that’s what is seeing through your eyes at this moment. That’s what is hearing through your ears at this moment. Instead of trying to figure it all out, which is impossible, I suggest you ask, "What’s ultimately behind this set of eyes?" Turn around to see what is looking. Encounter pure mystery, which is pure spirit, and wake up to what you are.

The mystery always takes care of itself -- as long as we are not addicted to following concepts. This addiction cuts off your access to the mystery. It’s like having a jewel in your pocket but you can’t get your hand into the pocket to pull it out. When you deeply know that you are the mystery experiencing itself, you realize that’s all that is ever happening. Whether you call an experience a me or a you, a good day or a rotten day, beauty or ugliness, compassion or cruelty -- it’s all still the mystery experiencing itself, extending itself into time and form. That’s all that is happening.

If this understanding is held only in your head, you can know it but you are not being it. The head is saying, "Oh, I know, I’m the mystery," and yet your body is acting like it didn’t get the message. It’s saying, "I’m still somebody, and I’ve got all these anxious thoughts and wants and desires." When we are being it knowingly, the whole being receives the message. And when the whole body receives the message, it’s like air going out of a balloon. When all the contradiction, turmoil, and searching for this and that deflates, there is the experience that the body is an extension of the mystery. Then the body can easily be moved by the mystery, by pure spirit.

-- Adyashanti, From "Emptiness Dancing"