It is late and I am listening to my breath.  It is soft and deep.  I am breathing. Here in the Silence the continent of my body dissolves.  I am naked.  We are all naked.

 Unidentifiable.  Even my samskaras take their leave. 

My eyes are closed.  I am absorbed into the vastness void of conception.  

“There is no birth or death”.  The truth arises naturally out of the emptiness.  My consciousness is not here or there.  It is not fixed. I am without border.  Form ceases.  My mind is mindless.  

I am aware that I am Awake and yet I sleep.

“I am asleep and yet I am Awake.”

 My consciousness is not bound to my body.  I see myself the mortal woman lying so still and warm hardly breathing.  She has surrendered.  I feel love for her vulnerability, for the fearlessness it gave birth to.  I love you I whisper.  Sleep my love, sleep.

santidevi

May 12th, 2009

I look out my window as a man vomits underneath the bridge.  He is homeless and filthy.  Plastic bags, membrane thin and torn hang from his body like lifeless kites.  His hands on his knees he struggles to maintain his balance, his human stature.  The coal train on the other side of the brick wall is motionless the only other witness to the suffering of a man whose headphones separate him from the rest of the world.  Kolkata arrives outside of my window and I am transported to another continent in a faraway land where this sight is commonplace and just as invisible.  

I feel the swelling ache of the world’s hungry, the despair of the homeless, and hopelessness of the imprisoned.  My heart beats in time with theirs and my relative comfort feels empty and shallow.  I breathe long into the awareness of this life so blatantly brief.  In this precious moment, in the silence of my abode I bow to the grief that bends the world into twisted form.  I absorb the suffering into my own Being and I feel it dissolve into the spaciousness that has no end.    

Santi Devi

The quote was crafted in pink chalk on the schoolhouse chalkboard that covers one wall in my bathroom.  One of my students had left it floating in the inky blackness.  I stood and read each word slowly, carefully,  just as it had been written.  Whenever I have moments of questioning my relative value in the world I am Awakened.  The Sacred has reached into my heart and blessed me with the Truth.  Life is a gift!

What is our value and how do we measure our worth.  Can it be quantified?  Albert Einstein said, “ The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”  Profound statement from an evolutionary man, it’s also true!  

For when you achieve liberation from the small self [ego] you no longer perceive yourself as a separate being, but as a correlative expression of the unifying field of consciousness.  A part that is also the whole.

When you are liberated from the self all that is unreal dissolves and all that is real manifests.  All illusion is absorbed and only the Truth remains.  The Truth is that your a Divine Being.  Self Realization is the purpose of your life.

At any moment you can experience your value by remembering your purpose.  To become who you are, to express it in a meaningful way in the world…to this you were born!  Your greatness lies in knowing and living this Truth.  Your life is a gift to the world, and your gift to the world is your life.

Love,

Santi Devi