Thoughts on Detachment and Awakening

Spirituality means waking up.

Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep.

They're born asleep, they live asleep,

they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep,

they die in their sleep without ever waking up.

They never understand the loveliness

and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.

Eckhart Tolle relates a story about spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti, who travelled for 50 years, lecturing and speaking about something that cannot be conveyed by words. At one talk late in his life, he stopped and just said, "Do you want to know my secret?" The audience was on the edge of their seats, having followed him for decades and not "gotten it". What he said was: "This is my secret: I don't mind what happens."

This is key in detachment…not minding what happens, not being affected by what happens, what someone says, what someone thinks…even if it’s someone you love very much…being able to calmly respond, “Is that so?” instead of drowning in the emotion that results from being totally identified with defending ourselves, being right, being trusted, even with being loved. It’s obvious that most of the time we DO mind what happens...very much! Of course we do..it’s a normal, human reaction…but we’re being called into a deeper place, and because we’re being called we can also count on the Spirit to provide us with the grace we need to move to that deeper level. Live into this grace. We can’t do it on our own, but we can practice detachment while waiting for the grace to live it.

Is there anything I can do to make myself Enlightened?
As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.
Then of what use are the spiritual excercises you prescribe?
To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.

Take a deep breath and look inward..say as little as possible. Remember, love calls us to a deeper place. Deep calls unto deep. These are the fruits of prayerful consent. We are on the path…awaken, beloved ones.

Quotes from One Minute Wisdom
by Anthony De Mello

Prayers That Are Made Out of Grass

Oh, good scholar, I say to myself,

how can you help but grow wise

with such teachings as these -

the untrimmable light of the world,

the ocean’s shine,

the prayers that are made out of grass?*

......

It is a cold and misty December morning. My friend Katy waits just inside her front door and her face brightens as she sees me drive up. "You get back in the car!" she exclaims as I hasten to take her arm and assist her along the sidewalk and into my idling car. I grin at her protests. Katy is eighty-something, she is wearing a bright red tam cap, and I am glad to spend a few moments walking through the drizzle with the soft, damp leaves underfoot to guide her safely down the path. She tells me that she has had the red cap since she was a girl. The trees alongside the street are gray in the mist. "Oh, how I love this rainy, misty weather!" Katy exults. I know what she means. "It makes one feel poetic, doesn't it?" I ask her. That is exactly the word she is looking for, she tells me. Katy's voice becomes thoughtful and melodic:

When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep...

.....

It is a beautiful poem by William Butler Yeats**, and I ask Katy if she knows the whole poem. She does indeed and proceeds to recite for me the entire piece, and suddenly this day seems very precious and golden. I wish that the sacredness of this moment would go on forever. And maybe it does go on forever...the veil is pulled back and we catch a glimpse, but always, always that sacred, golden light is here just beyond the veil. The sacred exists all around us for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see: prayers made out of grass, holiness growing in a flower pot, love falling softly from the gray clouds.... Come and see.

*from "Mindful" by Mary Oliver

**"When You Are Old"