The Big Picture

I get so wrapped up in politics sometimes that it appears even to me, to be Real. At these times, it benefits me to step back and take a look at the Macrocosm. The Big Picture.

What I Really Know is that we appear to be on a ball whirling in space in a galaxy we have named the Milky Way. But where is that galaxy, precisely? Where is it's location vis a vis all other known galaxies? Where is the outer edge of the Universe? It all comes down to truly we don't know. What we do know is that we are conscious; we have awareness and we can learn and know ABOUT things. But to truly know anything? My old spiritual teacher used to say "You don't know what anything IS!" That is so true and so liberating when contemplated deeply. For me, the liberating sense is to drop into Awe again, that anything anywhere exists at all. It is a huge Mystery.

It saddens me that human beings can't simply rest in being in AWE of the unknown instead of fearful of it. I see originating out of that fear, all of the psychological projections and Cro Magnon insecurities that invent the Creation myths. These in turn become codified religions with doctrine and dogma which in turn create "us" and "them" and my god is truer than your god. Or if not religion, then belief in materialism but not in abundance, not in "enough to go around", but more like Pink Floyd's "Money". "I'm alright Jack, keep your hands off my stack!" All this fear-based stuff. Politics is just the way in which we organize ourselves around these issues. Politicking begins in grade school. (What strategies can I use to feel safe and included when really I'm feeling so scared and confused?)

But allowing yourself to fall into the Mystery of Existence is to take time out from all of that. I used to do it as a kid. I literally spent hours staring into space, into the blue sky and asking 'Where did this all come FROM?" "What WAS before any of this appeared?" It used to make my mind itch.......but I couldn't stop pondering. Sometimes all I would get is frustrated. But other times, magical-mystery times, I would suddenly shift in my awareness and I would see that the manifested world is play of objects and processes upon and within a background of .......what I only termed "Presence". As if there was an eternally Present but untouched Witness to all of this and the Nature of that aware Presence is Acceptance, Peace, Space. Acceptance of everything as it is, room enough for everything to fit comfortably. Big, small, good, evil, light, dark, the Awareness was/is not at war with any of it. The sense of the Aware Presence I always felt could be summed up in the word "sublme." yes, it was, it is sublime.

I wonder what I'm passing on to my kids. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing my job of passing on the torch of any enlightened ways of viewing the world, of being in this world. But then I remember one day, with my oldest daughter when she was at the age of about six. We were at the Pulgas Water Temple in San Mateo at sunset. I said "Come on sweetie, time to go." She didn't budge, I took a moment from packing up our stuff to look at her. She was just staring off into the horizon. I said (rather stupidly) "What are you doing honey?" She said "I'm just looking at the Universe." Then I recall another moment with my youngest daughter. We were driving in the car, she was in her carseat, being the age of three. Out of the blue she says to me "Mommy, God is everything and everyone." I smiled and said "that's right baby girl."

I needn't worry after all. The same Presence with which I communed as a child is still available, it still communicates with children of all ages. In those still moments. "Be Still and Know." Yeah.