No Separation Means

.a surprisingly less-complicated life.

And that seems to be because wants, needs, desires fall into the separation category. When separation is seen to be illusory, it swallows the needs, desires and wants like neutered leatherback, folds back into the silver waters of awareness, and vanishes.

Some examples:

I listen to Badlands by Springsteen, and am taken to a core level of Holy Ghost revival meeting joyous Being listening to it. The desire comes to the surface of awareness, teeth shining, maw gaping. I should be doing music. I should be creating this kind of joy for myself and others. I have an ability that I should be harnessing. The beast is full out of the water now, I am thrashing my gear back and forth, but it is gobbling the heavy line like candied dental floss, eyes bulging and shining at me.

and then

No separation. I am not on this side and Bruce and my talent on the other side. We're all the same stuff, dancing on the surface with all of our needs, wants, desires, watching them pop up and dissolve again like a beautiful, effulgent circus game made up of a sheet of silver awareness.

There's no should. Just a realization that I can enjoy Bruce. Just enjoy Bruce.

Same thing with my need every night to have something to look forward to. Again, that suggests space, distance, separation. There is none.

I started playing with the idea of just showing up at home with no agenda every night, being fully present and seeing where it would take me.

Freedom.

namaste

Separation Papers

My concept of death has passed through many topical gates of inquiry; past the millstone of "why"; passed the emotional moors of nihilism, travelled to and from (or through) the barren yet exhausting existentialist wastelands. Got snowblind in those, almost lost my way, on the way to finding it.

So I've matured in my concept of death somewhat.

Now, when I look at it, and this is in the light of several deaths in my life - grandparents, friends, friends of friends - natural, premature, or otherwise - now when I look at it the closest feeling I can associate it with is a separation profound and unbreakable.

My sense is that those who have passed enter into an impersonal state, where they can 'see' or 'be' with family, friends, their past - but are not attached the way to it the way they were prior to death. That, plus an absolute barrier where communication - at least in the way we think of it - cannot take place. I believe that almost all rules in life can be broken, often need to be broken, but this one - here's a way to think of it - it does not seem relative. It seems absolute. The ultimate separation papers, from who you were to what you now are.

And the sense that it is not nearly as hard for those who have passed as it is for those who are left behind.

And that is the koan that I'm wrestling with right now on some level. As well as what happens in deep sleep, and the answer there that confirms awareness as non-corporeal.

I've seen through my spiritual travels and travails that happiness is wed to sadness; anger to joy; suffering to pleasure; in the world of not-two, they are two sides of the same coin.

What then, with this feeling, this vague abstract that paints death as profoundly one-sided?