Practicing the Presence of the Ineffable Divine

I was going to write something on Political Correctness and Multiculturalism at Petri Dish today but my mood is definitely in Origami Land so we’ll come here today.


Dog Poet Transmitting.......

Maybe it’s always been there. Well, of course it has but it was inaccessible much of the time, even though I knew it was there. I am talking about the ‘presence’ of the divine. A fellow for whom I was developing an incremental degree of affection took me to task for what amounted to a problem of syntax. It could have been gender specific too. Whatever it was, it was an insurmountable problem for the fellow and I regret what followed as a result.

I had apparently given the impression that I did not view the divine as a personality. This, of course, is not true. I talk to the divine and, I can assure you, when I do it is very definitely a being. I talk to the divine ineffable the same way I talk to you. I might say different things and the relationship may be different but it is a ‘living being’ and I have manifested all the degrees of positive and negative passion in respect of it on my way to the moment I am in.

However, if the divine is all in all, then the divine is in everything; sleeping in the rock, dreaming less deeply, as he goes up through the plant, the animal and the human being, until realized as himself in the consciousness of anyone in whom he awakens and even here, it is a matter of degrees. Not all realization is the same. Some are more fully realized than others and every master, no matter how wise or realized, has a master still and is a master only to the degree that he/she allows the one all pervading master to move freely within. We obtain mastery in only one way... submission. Call it surrender if that seems less obsequious. After all, there’s your pride to consider.

I try to stay away from religious terminology because I do not want to alienate anyone who might prefer a different icon or manifest garment in which one clothes the invisible ineffable to suit their upbringing or their tastes. The One is resident in all and therefore there is no conflict. I am partial to Krishna as the supreme personality but that’s just me. I am also drawn to Tara and other personifications of the mother, depending on my state of mind and also to the Amitabha Buddha and Lord Ganapati. It’s like having a family or a circle of friends. They’re all the same being but the seeming differences makes for a larger group. It’s like Christmas dinner. It’s far nicer to have a dozen people around the table rather than just two.

In one of my songs, “The Love”, there is the line, “One love falls and breaks into pieces everywhere and one love collects them all again.” This is what is going on. The divine manifested itself into many expressions for the purpose of seeking itself and gathers all the parts of itself back together in the process. Some pieces are gathered earlier and that is the preferable thing for any sane mind. Any sane mind would, perforce, be considered insane by the world and those in whom the world holds sway.

I said in a fairly recent posting that I had been engaged in various spiritual practices over the course of my life. Some of them lasted longer than others. Some I engaged in and then left by the side of the road and some came and went and came again. Over the last several years I have been through a series of relationships that were each intense for their time.

One of the jobs that Tara performs (and this posting is not about Tara), besides protection, is to route you to the Supreme Being. She takes you in hand and arranges for conditions that make you ready for the encounter. She presents you to your guru who is the particular mask worn by the divine ineffable for the purpose of conferring realization.

I have been at pains asking her again and again for this and it has brought me to a curious place for which I have a great gratitude. Over the course of this period I have become more and more aware of the concept of ‘presence’. Brother Lawrence wrote a powerful little book called, “The Practice of the Presence of God”. It’s well worth your time, as is “The Door to Everything” by Ruby Nelson.

During the last 16 months, I have experienced various periods of deep unease and discomfort. I wouldn’t know how to describe it but you are all familiar with similar things in your own lives. Recently, I had another one of these inexplicable misfortunes and it came at a time when I was trying very hard to reach the goal. These times have come no matter how devoted or well behaved I might have been seeking to be. It caused a sense of hopelessness now and again as if nothing I could do would make the slightest difference in what happened to me. That may be true. Luckily (if it is luck) for me, I am an irrepressible sort and just can’t stay down for very long. It’s just not in my nature. So, I always get back up and press forward with confidence and faith.

Over the last however long it’s been (grin) when I lay down in bed at night my mind turns immediately to the divine and I find myself saying things like, “I know you are there and I know you hear me. I know you have given me distractions the way a mother does with a child when it is pestering her. Sometimes these distractions have worked for a little while but they never last. I am incapable of being distracted for long and you know this.

“It could be that you are testing me to see my resolve and you might be busy but I don’t think it’s the latter. I have been asking you to give me your presence but I am realizing that you are always present and that I am not asking as precisely as I might. What I want is for you to awaken me to your presence. I want you to make it possible for me to be aware of your presence at all times and in all places. You are already here. Please make it possible for me to perceive that. I don’t want anything else. You know this. You know my heart and you know that nothing else will satisfy this need which I realize you placed in me to begin with.

“I understand that you could- and possibly will- create more powerful and attractive distractions but I don’t think even they will work now. I have looked at them and I see the downside before I see the upside and there is not much upside to any of it. Grant me the ability to feel your presence. You know it is my inheritance. You know I will be given this, sooner or later, so give it to me now”.

There’s more than that, of course. It goes on for hours. I find myself waking up as many as six or more times in the night and being immediately engaged in it; coming right out of whatever dream I am in... right back into it. There may be several hours before I fall asleep initially and I am pressing with a strong intensity in this way; the mind is pointed, the heart is inflamed and the body is contracting and digging into itself. The combination of all three is collectively much greater than the sum of the parts.

You have read in various scriptures some permutation of, “seek me with your whole heart, your whole mind, your whole being”. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says, “Success is speedy for the energetic”. Those are powerful words and they are true words. Many people scoff and mock but they have not tested the thing. They have not given it everything or even been capable of small disappointments, much less the greater challenges that take us to the point of letting go of everything, as we must or... we shall not arrive. We shall not arrive otherwise.

The reason I am even mentioning this is because of certain things that have been happening because of it ...and I won’t elaborate on them. For some reason, it is much more accessible and much more possible now than it has ever been and I cannot remember many times in my life when I found myself in states of being I could not have visited previously without psychedelic booster rockets.

It really is happening and it is there for any who might desire it more than they do whatever else is available; on a showroom floor, in a room of glitter, in a velvet box, a velvet outfit, wrapped in plastic or made out of it altogether. Many of us are experiencing grave trial and internal torment fueled by the negative emotions we have brought with us in our luggage. Toss your luggage in the sea and set your heart free. Press on within from this dream that holds you captive and see if you are not heard and answered in some fashion. Our difficulties here are of no real matter because all of this is temporary anyway. Some creations are not temporary and you are one of them.


End Transmission.......

Visible sings: ♫ The Love ♫
'The Love' is track no. 2 of 11 on Visible's 2001 album 'God in Country'
About this song (pops up)



The New Shangri-La (here we build the community in virtual space until the concept begins to crystallize and precipitate down into manifestation).