PANDEMIC

It’s August… Pandemic August… it has been five months of Lockdown and I remain in Nepal… remain unable to exit… remain here locked upon the bosom of the Annapurna Himalaya (Annapurna= everlasting sustenance). I remain washed amid her wealth of rain and water. Monsoon has come and will go soon. Corona Virus like a tide has seeped in and rises… has surfaced here in the sanctuary of Pokhara. And today, I might have it and I might not. If I have it, it is so far so mild… a tickle growing in the respiratory track. Likely in my rounds, I had been exposed. But I have quarantined… and have let the neighbors know. Their fear was stark when they understood.

The Fear of Covid… statistically 15% get severely sick, 3% succumb… and this has come to equate the contagion with death. It attacks… and one is at the mercy of rogue DNA. For sure I understand… understand that the individual I am is vulnerable… is an island in the stream of the predatory biological… and so easily may be submerged. So much of what my ego constructs about me is fortification… a bunker that fortifies tender me against a siege of fears. Loss, powerlessness, pain, hurt, humiliation, suffering, disapproval, rejection, disrespect, poverty… death… wait always at the walls ready and willing. Doom looms. Do I instinctively believe fear and worry do keep the bad of life away? Perhaps. Time is always providing choices. I have encountered many pitfalls and I have maneuvered through. Time has been gracious. Fear has been a tool in my kit… like a warning alert. To subscribe to it… to give it free rein... I found is a hell. These days I fear no evil. There are always physical sufferings, and I suffer. But where I live and love from… there is freedom and openness… like heaven itself. Death holds no terror. From a purity I came, to a purity I will return.

The dynamic… the gymnastics of safety seem as such: safe is… the stability of home… the support of family… the love of mate, children… the acceptance by friends… the competence of one’s person/task/profession… the citizenship in the cultural status quo… the communalism of tribe. But Safe is also… a fortress… a cage. Freedom... the power to live unfettered… to live unencumbered… is the pursuit of so many in this world… this world of so many contradictions and frustrations. Living free is highly elusive. It is equated with being wealthy… and O... is such an illusion. Owning one’s own jet seems the height of freedom, but the responsibility is weighty. For most, being free means acting with unbridled passion… with intoxication… with wild impulsiveness… means acting carefreely with zero responsibilities.

A three-year-old acts with such a freedom. And Mother provides a world that accommodates. Perhaps you too have noticed... a child’s heart is a wild enthusiasm… is a raw passion for experience. At my core… your core… is the same raw love for this world. But after many decades of living, my raw wildness is tempered… has been nuanced by the dichotomy of safe/free. My innate love for life none-the-less still craves to be liberated and fulfilled.

Liberation of one’s consciousness is freedom. Is the kind that counts… sustains. Liberation is the freedom to love universally… is the way of inner enthusiasm. Within… within the heart… within is the experience of life’s energetic essence… within, it is possible to embrace that pure constant unadulterated feeling. Knowing it, bringing it to the forefront, and living connected to it is liberation… it never disappoints… is living with one’s heart open… safe and free. It is always available. It took me awhile, but ultimately, intimately I came to trust. The human heart is so fragile. Safe is connecting to the unchanging, to the rock-solid timelessness of the source of life. Connected… my heart is given and soars with little fear… flies amid a garden of the fruits of fulfillment.

And when comes death… comes swiftly or slowly… when death comes to one fearful and defended within a fortress… it comes as an attacker. When death comes to one connected to the open flowing of life’s enthusiasm… death comes like a light… comes like a return to a familiar safe womb of soft serenity.

My point, as always, is I like to be as a three-year-old… my eyes awake to the wonder… my passion unbridled with the wine of it all on my lips… my heart spilling forth drunkenly… open and running free in the company of the intoxicating divine. But as well, in this world of peril, I like to be a wise adult with my strategies and shelters intact. Fo me, the platform, the treasure that gives me such a way is the practice of Prem Rawat's Self-Knowledge. And for sure something is going to kill me… but maybe not Corona right now.