Song Of The Day: Parallel Universe Dub / The Nothing
Word Of The Day: Maculate / To stain or make impure
Have you checked out Joe Perez's blog? He's got a new book coming out too, check him out. He kicks integral ass.
Back to Big Mind, love pumpkins.
Facillitator: I'd like to speak to another voice now. Can I speak to the voice of Passion?
Passion: Yes.
F: Who am I speaking with?
P: (Body posture adjusts to a very upright, alert position, face lights up, pupils open slightly, and torso leans forward a bit) Passion. You are speaking to Passion.
F: Tell me about yourself.
P: I am the life force. I am the vital, dynamic exuberance that animates all, including Stuart.
F: What's your job, what's your role as passion?
P: To begin, I commit. When I engage -whether it's a person, a work of art, an act of creation, or a business deal, I am fully, utterly present. All the way in. I don't have time or patience for limp-wristed, listless, half-assed energy. I am acutely attuned to the fact that life is precious. Sentience is rare (but consciousness is ubiquitous). To have the incredible, rare opportunity to inhabit both at once is a gift too great to measure, and I do not have patience for those who waste it and take it fore-granted. Each moment of life, each experience is an enigma, a spiritual puzzle containing all the clues one person would ever need to wake up.
By example, What is the unbelievable miracle that simply IS experience? Do we have any fucking CLUE how extraordinary it is that we have something called "experience"?. What is it that experiences, what is being experienced, and from whence do they both come, how do they meet? I mean, for Stuart to even have an experience -let's say inhaling the cool, crisp winter morning air at his Colorado home- a staggering, unimaginable array of factors have to arrange themselves.
The capacity to smell alone, to inhale, evokes wonder.
Stuart steps out the door, one foot beyond the threshold, and takes a big breath, bringing the chilly mountain air through both nostrils and carrying it into the base of his belly. Breath is perhaps the most universally employed symbol of spirit, immanence of divinity, and its also central to almost every contemplative practice. It's the most intangible, immaterial aspect of all our phsical functions, but it's also the most grounding. And it's fucking freaky, how PHYSICAL and tactile taking one breath of cool air is. When Stuart takes that breath, he is in physical relationship with the environment, literally sensually entwined with the atmosphere, the planet, mountains, each and every item contained in it. How did such a capacity come to emerge in animate beings, to inahle, to respire, smell, and intimately enmesh with the Biosphere and everything in it? Beyond that, what about the capacity to reflect on that capactiy? If we consider it for few moments, it fucking blows the mind. Take the next breath, with a beginner's mind, without all the deadening filters and assumptions, and there is an invitation to me, Passion.
We can rediscover that one breath, and the miraculous way it reaches omni-directionally inward and outward in every direction. Each breath is inextricably linked to every function in Stuart's body, mind, and spirit, it involves every organ, cell, and atom in his body, all the emotion, memory, and potential in his heart-mind, and it tangibly links and mingles him with the sum of all beings on the planet, biosphere, and ultimately Kosmos. It's the encrypted Key to awakening in each moment, the Open Secret knocking on chest of the Human Being in any moment. True Passion is the simple, ever-present contact with all these dimensions. Passion is the dynamic participation in What IS in every surprising moment. True passion doesn't prefer pleasure over pain, or acquisition over loss. It's only preference is for Reality over Delusion, for a free-moving wheel over a stuck one.
F: As we dialogue, I admittedly feel your energy in this room. What else can you telll me about you, like what are some of the things that people might have misunderstood or misconceived about you?
P: People often think that to access me, to claim Passion, they have to get rid of fear and anxiety. That's not the case. I can co-exist with any qualities, in fact I do co-exist with all qualities. I am available to any person, but I am not personal.
I am a Universal Constant. I am a basic constituent of Reality. I activate the seen and unseen worlds, and to access the deepest realm of ME- the Universal vitality, just put out the right antennas. Now, the way that I -Universal Passion will manifest and express myself is unique and singular to each person I come through. But I AM -whether as passion for a calling, friends, family, passion for struggle, justice, or making love with another person- I AM the perquisite inheritance of every sentient being.
You do not have to eliminate anxiety or fear in order to find me, conduct me, inhabit me. It's a question of who you are going to let steer the vehicle. Stuart is pretty good about this, he lets me lead, he gives me the wheel most of the time, and so I am able to operate without debilitating constraints. There is still fear and anxiety in Stuart, all sorts of misgivings, and The Master (you'll meet the Master later on) does listen to those voices and take them into account, but they are not allowed to mutiny and take the wheel. Like anything else that actually endures, I am an agent of Love, the big Love that has no opposite, not that contorted vortex of neurosis and egomaniacal drama people obscenely refer to as "love". As an agent of love, I am fearless, pure, and inexhaustable. That does not mean that when I am present fear is not present. There is Love, and there is fear. Love is real and immutable, fear is impermanent and dependant upon conditions. I am the vital blood of God, of Love.
However, my ultimate loyalty is to that Love. That's good news and bad news. Because even though the frontal structure -the personality, the individual identity of a human being- may initially take consolation in something larger and greater than itself, may feel incredibly illuminated and infused with divine energy by opening itself to Passion (and rightly so, because that's exactly what is happening, divine plasma is moving through the human, which is where it belongs) -the down side is that the same source (Love's Passion) that animates you now will destroy you in the near future.
By way of example, consider your human body. Every day, literally billions -if not trillions- of discrete living forms (cells, bacteria, viruses, etc) pass out of existence within the boundary you call "I". If this weren't happening, you would quickly become static and sick. Each dying "part" is an indespensable part-icipant in the continual regeneration of the Whole. That is my meta-play/work- unending renewel through death and dissolution.
As Passion, my loyolty is with with Love, in the body of God. Whether it's Stuart, or you, or the city of Pittsburgh, or the planet Earth- each part within the body of God is simultaneously the benefactor of Passion, of rejuvination and Life Force, and is also being dissolved moment to moment and included in something new, larger, and previously (literally) inconceivable. That's not a problem as long as Stuart, or any sentient being, disavows the temptation to preserve or perpetuate a form beyond its natural lifetime. Then I'm dealing with contraction and shadow. Fear traffics in distortion and hallucination, given the opportunity it will subvert Me. I don't mind the presence of fear and resistance, as long as it isn't trying to call the shots. When it tries to take the wheel, I have to dissolve it.
And so, Stuart may love Me today because I'm his muse, creativity, I'm the infinite vital fuel he can access freely, at any moment. But I am infinite, NOT STUART. I am boundless, Stuart is bound. Stuart is a fleeting aggregation of qualities and conditions. As an agent of Love, I Love Stuart without limit (where do you think the word "com-passion" comes from?). I will even allow him to masquerade as Me -as Passion- especially when it serves the Work-Play of the Mystery, but Stuart is a vapor that will disappear, and long after he is gone, I will be creating, dissolving, inhabiting, exploring, discovering new beings and new ways of Being. My work-play can't be known through intellect, but I'm readily accessible to the human being.
I am right here for you to drop into, always open and ready to receive Stuart, or any being, into the Point Of All Places, where I remake Reality each moment.
