what's this sadness all about?

i skipped meditation for a day. how did that happen? i awake around four and find myself suffused in sadness. something that has not happened in a long, long while. good news is i am looking into it and know that i am not it. the first question that comes through me is, what is this about? though i know that it has nothing to do with my great self something from within signals me to look a little deeper. i don't know how much time has gone by before i become aware of what's going on. the finale of a novel i've been reading. actually, to be more accurate, it's a soap opera about a family of jews in pre-war poland. the book ends with the main character choosing to stay in warsaw soon after bombing began. he could have run away the way he had run away from everything all his life thus far. god. family. wife, actually wives. children. and yet, in the midst of ruins and chaos he chose to stay for his daughter and family. when asked why, he simply said, i want to die. given what little i know about history i get chills from guessing what's their outcome. he would have gotten what he wanted. the last words of the book are 'death is messiah.' when i read this line, i didn't get it.

in predawn darkness i breathe in deep and breathe out long. i let go of the sense of time passing. i allow myself to be with the sadness. i guess that's what 'face to face' means. i ask, what am i to learn from you? then i recall something from earlier in the book. the author, i b singer, says, to the effect, this person has forsaken god. he is pretty much dead. getting drowned in doubt. having women drawn to him brought fleeting flesh pleasures. from this perspective i can understand his desire to die and thus his choice. i resonate with his misery and suffering.

i tell hwubby what's on my mind. he says, well, there's a sad part in your book too. hmm. interesting.
food for contemplation.

i drift off to sleep and come out fresh and bright, ready for yet another beautiful day.

inner pharaoh

pharaohs are like all things in the physical universe. they come. they go. one down. another one up. the only pharoah that i can really have a rein on is my inner pharaoh. really. all that which keep me in poverty consciousness are stuff of a pharaoh's doing. last night after hwubby and i have a discussion about what is our inner pharaoh i go to bed feeling this sense of a hard layer gradually shielding the heart region. i watch it. i don't pin it onto any specific thing. mostly it is a pervading sense of sadness, sorrow, melancholy. what causes it? really. it can be anything. one thing is as good as the other. there's always some reason to make worrying and fear seem real and justifiable. early on a wise yogi says to me, the problem is not the problem, it's your problem with the problem that is the problem. this morning i wake up and find my awareness in this vast, quiet, still space that is throbbing subtly with vibrancy. the natural breath is flowing in and out with ease. i lie there. i see this hardness around the heart is still around but now i look at it with a fresh eye. insights appear like silk being drawn from cocoon. on one hand they make sense of this hardness. on another hand they, along with the hardness, come and go as well. none of it, good or bad, sad or pleasurable, is who i really am. the body comes and goes. thoughts, feelings come and go. it is my innermost self that is the single constant through all this. it is independent of anything in the physical universe. it is watching all this and all this and all this come and go. i am enslaved to nothing and no one. anything that makes me feel less than that is the voice of the pharaoh.

the body is a garment that the soul wears

two days ago i was taking care of a situation when i suddenly caught myself head under water in sad feelings. the whole thing involved elderly relatives going through physical deterioration. i knew enough by now not to brush it aside, ignore it, nor indulge in it. it took quite a bit of willpower to shift attention to the steady pace and sound in the ocean of the breath. gradually i moved into the stance of being aware of the sadness rather than being it.

in this morning's meditation i see the message from my inner self. there is a place of pure joy within you. go there. indeed it is the truth. the body is a garment. all garments go through wear and tear. on this note my meditation silk pants are so worn out and yet it's just hard to let it go. in a silly way part of me says, you can't meditate as well in other pants. in a sort of similar way i am attached to the body, equating it with existence, with life itself.

my first wake-up moment along this line was when i was dressing the body of my muimui (younger sister) for her funeral. my mind was preoccupied with one thought, this looks like my muimui, her skin is as fair as ever, but where is she? i had no word for it but it was clear that something left her body.

the body is a garment that the soul wears. i have to take care of it. but the essence of me is the inner self. this is the truth. this is the truth. this is the truth.