How do I Love You? Oh Let me Count the Ways...

Dog Poet Transmitting.......

The world has done so much to intrude upon our lives and more specifically upon our minds. The proper response from most of us was not forthcoming. We just accepted it all as conditions we had to live with, so we shrugged and went our way as the darkness gathered around us and within us. I will refer to a Bible passage that is meaningful to me; “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I counsel all who come here with similar concerns as we have to pay close attention to those words. Let me rephrase them slightly (grin)... Surrender your fate to the ineffable and put all your trust in the ineffable and hold fast to what you know is true and that which seeks to divide you against yourself will depart from you.

The shadow of previous weakness would not trouble us if it had not once had a foothold. It looks for that point of weakness; some crack in the facade of our badly assembled self, where it can gain access and seek to increase its influence. I know it well. I have been caught in the mix and tumbled like clothes in a washing machine. Only by the grace of the ineffable am I able to sit here today and write these words. I literally cannot remember how many times I have been hammered on. It seems that I should have been broken and lost. It is inconceivable that I could have gotten through it but I did. It was not possible for me to survive what I experienced but the ineffable was there.

His invisible hand worked in impossible circumstances and made what should not have come to pass, come to pass. At one point I was facing life in prison, where no one had gone free before under similar circumstances and the ineffable did such wonders that it still leaves me incredulous; no one since has experienced this either, in that location. It had the highest conviction rate in the nation. It was a slam dunk and I had no visible means to counter any of it... yet... it happened and that was only one event. There were several of similar kind and some involved life and death circumstances and even worse than that. I saw it going on around me but the ineffable prevailed because the ineffable ALWAYS prevails. Put your fate in the hands of the ineffable and according to your faith it will be done unto you.

My faith was not great, or it did not seem so to me. I KNEW that God was real. This I knew but, I did not know that God loved me as it has been proven to be. I had been raised in such a way as to be convinced that I was a worthless piece of shit. I was told this over and over, even before I could walk. I have vivid memories of it. What I did not know was that this was all a measure of the kindness of the ineffable to break me down, to destroy the false self that was present in me so that when the kundalini force came for me, it swept away all of my false presumptions about everything. I was reduced to nothing. The amazing thing to me is that somehow the false self came back. It came back again and again and again. Every effort I have given in this fight has been to small avail but somehow the ineffable has been there all along.

I realize now that this war within has not been about only myself. For some reason I am a central clearing house where each false identity conferred on me was from some other location and I was meant to be the place where the dissolution took place. Nothing else made sense. So much that I was clueless about has become more clear with time. Sometimes what is meant for us is struggle. Sometimes our destiny is to come up against conditions and change them... even when we seem to be defeated in the effort. Defeat is not always the end result because often victory takes place within and what seemed unchanged becomes changed in the aftermath. Just as the shadow looks for cracks in us to gain a foothold, the light also seeks cracks in the shadow and defining blows can be struck and then like a recurring echo, the following intent resounds upon the shadow and dissolves it.

I remember telling Guru Bawa that I wanted to surrender and he said, “No! Not you. You fight and fight and fight and when you can fight no more, then you surrender.” What is a person supposed to think about that? So much becomes clear in hindsight. So much that seemed to be wrong or absent of all sense, gains meaning... once the hidden factors come in to sight. I've come to understand that we have only partial understanding of existence. It is expressed in the Biblical quote;

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

“Even as also I am known”. This tells me we are more than the sum of the parts we are aware of. This tells me also that we should not judge ourselves too harshly and that perhaps when we do it is somehow connected to our judgment of others. I have learned some part of that lesson of walking a mile in another man's moccasin. It may seem that I engage in judgment every day here but I prefer to call it making observations and knowing full well in my heart that except for fortune that could well be me. I've no quarrel with anyone by intention, it simply turns out to be the natural result of a grand design. It's a pity I cannot see more than a small part of it.

Last night I lay in my bed for what seemed like hours, saying, “I love you Lord” over and over and over. Surely it was hours and something would trap the mind and pull it aside, or images would seek to intrude the way that a commercial appears in a television show and I would see it happening and pull the mind back to the statement which needed to be said with freshness and authenticity each time. You cannot allow it to devolve into mindless redundancy. Then it would be better not to engage at all. So it went and all those obstacles and interruptions kept manifesting; maybe I should stop now. Surely I have done this long enough and... that ancient tedium that always presses from the periphery came into play. There is this creeping lassitude and the relentless undertow of the physical self with it's lust for the forgetfulness of dream intoxications and... after all you are in bed.

If one could not sleep then the mind could free range for greater lengths of time here and there, further and yon through an endless field of entertaining and distracting nothingness but... to be fixed and purpose filled is something that does not come easy and unless there is joy in the process you are just swimming in circles. It is pointless to be saying, “I love you Lord” if that is not the case to begin with. It is here that gratitude and affection flood my heart because, in truth, I do love the Lord, because his profound demonstrations of miraculous intervention in my life confirms and validates the eternal dynamic that exists between us when... at the same time, we are mysteriously one and this is the cardinal recognition that I must... and will accomplish.

So it is... I can say it over and over and feel my heart soar with the grateful effort given. I am so thankful that I am thankful! How wonderful it is to know that there is no experience greater than that of the sincere yearning of the hungry heart for the one who is shrouded yet still enthroned within. What bliss to be swept up in it and then... inexplicably, I fell asleep in the middle of it... heh heh.

Several times this morning I found myself saying it again. Is it possible that this will continue to grow and grow? Yes... it is. How can anything on this Earth compare with this? It cannot. The vain and fruitless pursuits of appetite that perpetually leaves one empty, seem to me to be one of the greatest tragedies. On it goes, consuming the life of the one driven to yet one more death, upon a seemingly endless carousel of births and deaths, chasing after meaningless accomplishments and pedestrian gain... all of it soon enough forgotten in the aftermath, or ringing across time as an example of what can happen when you lose track of what is important, or never even knew what it was in the first place.

Truly, I love you Lord and seek only to love you more. My gratitude cannot be measured when I consider how priceless it is to feel motivated in this way. How thankful I am that this is what inspires me. Nothing else matters at all, except for the opportunity of service born of the authentic desire to share it at every turn.

Does it matter how much I or anyone has suffered if this is the place we find ourselves in? Sans regret... sans bitterness... Sans any sense of failure when this remains the greatest accomplishment one can attain to in any life; to become intoxicated with the splendor, beauty and grandeur of God is the ultimate... divine madness, bring it on!

Surely there are many who will call me a fool Have at it. At some point I will have moved beyond the sound of your voice. Dear Lord, may I be guided in this manner and direction for all of my days, here and elsewhere that is here as well ...and may your grace and compassion touch every heart that beats on your command and is sustained by your ceaseless meditation and devotion to the promise and hope that extends beyond the reach of time for every heart and mind, whatever may be their present obsession in the temporary dreams of appetite.


End Transmission.......