sky of iron, earth of gold.

the skies above your head shall be copper and the earth under you iron. for some reason these words from this week's torah portion catch my eye. they ring familiarity. where have i seen them before? over the yummy potluck sabbath meal something comes to me. a bright sense. i see it like looking at a gold coin lying at the bottom of a clear and still pond. a story. the story of alexander the great as told by my guru. i heard it once and it's been fiercely seared within me since.

here's how it goes as i recall it now.

when alexander first became king he summoned the best and brightest astrologers in the land. he asks of them one question only. when will i die? the astrologers went to work. they came back and said, your majesty, you will die when sky turns to iron and earth gold. wow. what does that mean? that's exactly what alexander asked. the astrologers didn't have an answer. so alexander thought and thought. well, how can sky turns to iron? impossible. how can earth turns to gold? impossible. well, that can only means one thing. sky will never turn to iron. earth will never turn to gold. and i will never die.

with that understanding, alexander went out to conquer and conquer and conquer. his soldiers believed their commander could not be defeated. the armies on the opposite side in the battlefield lost the will to fight. after all how can you beat someone who is destined to never die?

fast forward. alexander was passing through a rough terrain. he started to feel ill. he wanted to stop and pause a little bit. his loyal general said, your majesty, we are in the middle of nowhere, this is not a place suitable to receive your majesty. please let us go a little further. alexander agreed. he soldiered on. he grew sicker and sicker. finally he couldn't hold it anymore. he decided to just stop and get off the horse right there. his loyal general immediately removed his protective vest that is woven of fine threads of gold and spread it out so that his king would not lie on coarse sand. then he held up his shield of iron over alexander's head as shade. alexander lay down, closed his eyes. after a while he felt a little better. he opened his eyes. what did he see? iron over his head. gold underneath him. in less than a wink he remembered. he knew. he started to sob and sob and sob. the general said, your majesty, you''ll be allright. alexander said, it's too late. the general said, what do you mean? alexander said, if only i knew then what i know now, i would have done differently, but it's too late. he wept and wept and wept to death.

all this fabulous existence is, in the end, a fabulous movie.

this thing about 'remember your own death' works like a charm for me. as i contemplate on it i realize what happens is it takes away all the edge and bondage of fear. fear of unknown. fear of uncertainty. fear of doing something wrong. fear of getting 'no' as the response. fear of losing money, house, whatever, but no exception. fear of no praise. fear of blame. fear of criticism. seeing that none of this matters when i am dying frees me up. my awareness becomes steeped in the inner self which is that part of me that is immortal.

a flash of this understanding is great. and what i need to do is keep my meditation practice going to make sure the flash builds, and builds, and builds, until i am one with the understanding. i am none other than the inner self. all this fabulous, fantastic existence is, in the end, a fabulous, fantastic movie. a grand and dazzling play of lights of consciousness.

i meditate to become aware of the self within

do i meditate to become the self? nope. i meditate to become aware of the self within. i already have the self. i just have to remember that. as a matter of fact, remembering that and my own death are all i need to hold myself in the present moment. the rest are just things to take care of.

having said that i have to remind myself that staying in the present is not the same as being stuck. i accept myself as it is in the context of moving forward on the path to become constantly aware that there is no difference between my individual consciousness and supreme consciousness. my mind is clear sky.

if i were to die right now...

let the mind become inseparable from the inner self. that's what comes to me as i contemplate on the question 'how do i know whether it's the heart or the mind talking?'

hwubby says, yeah, there's this voice that says you can do this, and then there's this voice that goes neah neah neah, and then you are pulled all over the place.

that's where meditation comes in. as far as i am concerned, it's only with a mediation practice that i'm more and more able to ground myself in the present. only then, when i am coming from that place i'm not mistaking mental noise for the voice of the inner self.

what if there's doubt? then i take a pause, turn attention to the breath, breathe in deep, breathe out long, and apply this question, if i were to die right now what would i wish i had done in this moment?