Within

‘Dance at Moulin de la Galette’ – Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876 – WikiArt

You know sometime truth has its ways and character. You may be quietly sitting at home in silence, listening to some wise teaching. You may want to feel this unconditioned essence of yourself with your eyes closed, within — oh so within! — and feel enclosed in your beautiful, limitless, eternal self. But that appears to be difficult, not quite the day for it, not quite where you want to be. The ‘I am’ door is making a squeaky sound. Today is to see the face of god in all and everything, out in the world. Today is for the car horns and the smell of exhaust fumes. Today is for being in love with the cigarette butt lying in the gutter at the bus stop, and seeing that there is no more, no less here of presence than there is in the melodious swaying of trees in the summer breeze. Today is to feel my essence borrowed by the facades of buildings and by a nearby, wandering canal. It is to feel my own being shared with all passing strangers — oh, so many friends everywhere! — and with an inquisitive pigeon, or a happy dog coming along. Today is for being a seer and a hearer of beauty. It is for a wedding with truth, in the church of experience. It is for the world marrying its presence with freedom and ease, to the presence of my self. Today is to feel with my hands and eyes and ears, that the whole temple of life, from the hard matter-like objects to the thin air caressing my cheeks, and to the pregnancy of sounds — all that is produced by the senses — is but empty of its own substance, and full of the silent, pristine, ethereal presence of the divine.

Another day may present you with something entirely different. You may find yourself wearied by the world out there and crossed with experience. You may want to be at home, simply at home, and take a long journey within, to be taken into the purity contained in being only being. Today is for sitting quietly and for closing your eyes. It is for the feeling of being — unmixed, unadulterated, whole and held within. It is for the seeing of my interior, where thoughts now come one after the other, to die of their natural death. It is to feel that there is here a space which is ready to welcome my all, and has the power to look and to embrace. Today is for letting my feelings melt in the safe harbour of my being, and for marrying my sensations to the infinite space that contains them. It is wholly for the wondrous feeling that I am. Alone. Pregnant. The one that brings all identifications back to their original womb of presence. Today is to be without characteristics of any sort, and to bathe in emptiness and anonymity. It is for the caress of being, and for the never ending gaze towards infinity. Today is for the merriness in my heart, at the wedding of my self with the eternal now. It is to be showered with the knowing of my reality, and to have my being anointed with the peace contained within it. Today is for a honeymoon with my loving essence, and for a sacred communion with the nameless. It is to feel my own substance full of the silent, pristine, ethereal presence of the divine.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

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Website:
– Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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