All at Once

“I want to take the preconceived
out from underneath your feet
we could shake it off
and instead we'll plant some seeds
we'll watch them as they grow
and with each new beat
from your heart the roots grow deeper
the branches, well they reach for what?”

Song: All at Once
Artist: Jack Johnson
Album: Sleep Through the Static

Somehow this communicates something very important to me. See two men with beers in their hand watching their children play together on the playground. Suddenly they are struck with something profound but can’t quite articulate it. Clutching his beer and lost in watching the joy of his children play on the sunny day, one says to the other, “That’s what it’s all about… that right there is what it’s all about.”

He can’t quite pinpoint those words which are the fundamental teachings of all planes of existence, “unity, love, light, and joy”, yet he glimpses it, feels it, and experiences it through the simplicity of his children playing with the other children. He touches on something so central that it reduces all the complexity to the simple, simple, root experience of joy in the moment… joy unconcerned with the past, untroubled by the future to come… unrelieved joy shining out from the heart of the moment, unimpeded by the attachments to troubles of the conscious mind…

Jack Johnson’s verse above conveys this as well.
”I want to take the preconceived out from underneath your feet”
“and instead we’ll plant some seeds and watch them as they grow”

All the *concepts* that we humans identify with, which by and large do not necessarily reflect the natural creation of love, all the concepts that we fight over, all the concepts that separate and divide us, all the concepts that keep us locked into our tight fitting containers which preclude the possibility of opening up and making ourselves vulnerable to the flowing, living, radiant truth that moves outward from the center of the moment…

What we miss is something so simple… if we could just let go of our “preconceived notions” upon which we stand… if we could suspend, even momentarily, all that we think we “know” and together watch seeds grow… to distill our universe of deluded thinking down to that primary level of reality…

We could watch seeds grow and… well, we could watch seeds grow… and we might understand as we watch seeds grow that we are one… we could watch the process of life itself, that intelligently directed and ultimately loving process of a seed bursting forth from the soil of the earth to reach for the light… something so basic… love reaching for love… we could watch seeds grow and ask ourselves, “What is there to be so troubled with? When our basic needs are met, why do we remain so unsatisfied? How can we as humans grow and live like plants and animals yet be so unnatural? Where is the conflict? Why hate the seed growing next to me because it thinks something differently?" Many lessons we could draw from watching and understanding the Process that sees to itself, the process of growth from seed to plant to decay to death. The process of the inexorable evolutionary drive within every iota of creation.

This will come across as hopelessly naive, but... The militant Israeli and a militant Palestinian could release the win-less struggle and watch seeds grow… the warring Hindus and Muslims and of India and Pakistan could forget the hatred for a moment and watch seeds grow… the members of my own family could forgive the past and watch seeds grow… all could LET GO for just a moment and connect into what is universal, what is common to us all, what is not located exclusively within the soil of the earth but what in parallel grows forth from the soil of our hearts in the moment…

Of course things are more complex than this. But through the meditative process, the layers of complexity can be simplified and distilled down to an essence within which the shining truth of unity can become a direct apprehension, an immediate first-hand experience.

In an infinite universe, there is only identity. If all modes of perception are potentially available to each entity, it becomes a matter of where the focus and attention is laid which determines what we identify with. It becomes a matter of tuning the radio of our consciousness to receive and understand the deeper or higher or more light-filled carrier waves of the One Great Original Thought. Watching seeds grow and transmuting the energies of separation is not a reduction of consciousness in the sense that consciousness, or anything of value, is lost... on the contrary, to watch seeds grow and apprehend the underlying unity to life is to transcend limited thinking, to move a metaphorical step up on the ladder or spectrum of consciousness to an ascendant point of view.

“from your heart the roots grow deeper
the branches, well they reach for what?”

What do they branches reach for? We would be wise to ask ourselves. What is the direction of life and what is it that we, like the branches, reach for? We can make conscious what the branches know only unconsciously, instinctually. We can make conscious that we not only reach for the light, but we are the light, that through our actions and basic energetic vibration we shine the light into this world and the hearts of others... Let us just stop our activities for a moment and together, watch a seed grow...

I, btw, am learning to love Jack Johnson the way I do Dave Matthews… his skin grows transparent to a radiant soul, a source of light shining through the form and the voice… Valerie does not yet enjoy his new album, “Sleep Through the Static” as much as the others because it’s not as upbeat and perky as the others, but lyrically it’s his most reflective and it is written, I feel, from a place of greater depth.

Who Am I?

I shall describe not the incorrigible self of personality which is hopelessly and permanently riddled with distortion. I instead shall describe that which is at the center and depths of my heart, that which beats in creative rhythms of rest and passion, being and doing.

Who am I? Reduced to its simplest form: I seek the One. This is my response, this is my purpose, my passion, my faith, my service, my reason for existence, my identity. I am he who seeks the One.

Nothing is more true within myself than that which I affirm: “I seek the One”. That is the unchanging rock upon which I stand, that is the North Star within, that is my Polaris of self. In the courses of these successive cycles around the sun, everything else shifts, changes, transforms, and falls away. This remains and grows in strength: I seek the One.

In this seeking of the One, I know not how and when I make so-called progress, I know not how the finite self and the infinite self shall meet within this soul, but I know by what mechanism the process is activated, enabled, and moved upward. The Law of One states that, “Your faculty of will is that which is powerful within you as co-Creator. You cannot ascribe to this faculty too much importance.” Also, “The inner light is that which is your heart of being. Its strength equals your strength of will to seek the light.”

I have discovered that which the Law of One speaks of – the engine of evolution living within me which moves towards the light. It, the coiled serpent, has awoken within me --- I have turned it on; It calls to me --- I invoke it; It pushes me forward --- I utilize it for forward movement. I seek the One.

In this seeking, I can not navigate my way with a skill that sees the road immediately in front of me, for truly I move forward in blindness, seeing nothing ahead and knowing nothing of my true situation. I am helpless in the sense of being able to skillfully plot a course to unity; I don’t possess this knowledge and have no training in cartography. What is within my power to do, what I consciously commit to in this life of “Gary Bean”, is to intensify this will within me: to increase determination, to never relinquish persistence, to purify my desire, to cleanse my heart, to be eternally constant in the attempt.

The intensification of the will is the intensification of a homing beacon, I feel. While I carry and bear the burden, the homing beacon does the bulk of the work because the will, carefully directed in service to others, operating largely below the threshold of conscious awareness, knows its way home. Though I am the caged bird who breathes free air but does not yet know freedom as an immediate experience, I am a creature possessed of will. The will, persistently exercised, intelligently calls to it those opportunities which unlock the self from its material prison with each act of self-sacrifice. As that bird, I use the will to seek the One and let go of the cage.

My knowing of the ultimate, final, and true direction of will comes through faith; for without faith, the will never leaves the ground. By faith and faith alone I trust that my seeking shall bear fruit; by faith I am utterly convinced that transformation is possible and is happening within me; by faith I know of the rightness of the Path and by faith I know of the existence of the Path itself; by faith I exercise the will to jump off the next precipice (always hoping for the opportunity of that final leap into infinity); by faith my steering is unerring, even when making apparent errors in course; by faith I walk the straight and narrow, even when I meander, propelled forward by the will to seek; by faith I sense the jewels buried underneath the surface of illusion, awaiting my discovery; by faith I understand that, within the incarnation, eternal reality can be realized, union with the One experienced, and intelligent infinity contacted by all who truly seek to know in order to serve. By faith I seek to dance with infinity in the seeming chains of the finite, to experientially know the ground of all being and, from that level, operate within the commonplace affairs of the manifest world. By faith I relax and know that all is well. I seek the One and by faith I know who I am.

I can not lose this seeking, I can not forget this seeking for very long, (how could I turn my back on myself?) No other concern can override this seeking for very long for it is my nature as it is the sun’s nature to shine; from within, it surfaces constantly; I seek to cultivate it, be more conscious of it, and make more room for it. It is that force around which my adult life has been crafted, it is that drive which will shine from me unto the very last breath. I am like the ox marching through the deep mire. I am tired, my load is heavy, but my gaze ahead is unwavering and forward I march, slowly but steadily until I leave the mire. I seek the One.

When I am at work, I seek the One, when I am at play, I seek the One, when I am driving to my girlfriend’s, when I am shopping in the grocery store, when I am reading the news, when I am eating peanut butter, when I am forming my perceptions of the world, when I am reacting to those about me, when I am lost in confusion and turmoil, I seek the One. In every person I meet, in every animal that crosses my path, in every plant reflecting light into my eyes, I seek the One. In all circumstances, my seeking is. There is no moment that the Creator does not belong in, in terms of my conscious awareness; there is no activity outside of the seeking. The true Tao can not be deviated from; all things are instruments and symbols for knowing the One. From one shore to the other I will cross, my raft made of all means possible. I seek the One in and through *ALL* experiences.

Yet I am not the active, male principle alone. I am also the feminine, I am also the passive. I seek the One with the yin energies flowing through one hand and the yang energies flowing through the other. Thus when I reach, I wait, receptively. When I call out to the Creator, I listen for the Creator. When I activate the will, I remain still. When I rise to the heights of exalted passion, I am patient without attachment to outcome. When I am alert and vigilant, ever watching and observing, I am passive, seemingly inactive. When I view multiplicity, I see with singleness of vision – the One. When I seek freedom in emptiness, I also embrace form – as the mirror does its image. I seek the invisible yet ever perceptible. I seek the One.

I am the will to seek. I have made a decision, I have made a commitment – in this lifetime or the next – I will realize what I seek, I will experience that which I seek, I will become that which I seek. As faith opens up the tight containers of thought to depths and heights unfathomable, I will transcend words, concepts, and my own thinking to drink in the pure mystery from which they, the finite, sprang. I will let go of the personality and gain that which is essential. I will accept that which occurs to me in the daily round of activities, mortifying and sacrificing the self-centered, self-interested, self-willed desires, cravings and aversions, making room for the One through the channel of this self. I seek the One.

By virtue of this seeking, these upper most layers of consciousness with which I am somewhat familiar, this small self which in many conceptual ways is an opaque barrier to the One, will be rendered a transparent doorway through which the One is known because I, like all others, am the doorway through which the Creator is known. I AM literally the door, the gateway exists within. I seek the One.

The small self is my starting point. From there I begin and – standing balanced in self-acceptance and self-knowledge, becoming humble and transparent, aware of both my apparent distortions and total perfection – I will unconditionally love the ever misguided small self and ride the shuttle to what is known as intelligent infinity. This continual dispassionate observation – requiring consistent and disciplined will – makes room for the light of the Logos to shine into and onto that surface personality. I seek the One and learn to love this self formed of and lost within the illusion yet regenerated by grace from the One. I seek the One.

Ultimately, “I” who seeks the One is not “I” as I understand myself but the Creator seeking through me. My seeking IS the creator waking up within me, Spirit becoming aware of itself. This seeking I intensify, this I fuel, and this I return to with concentration. I make it stronger, carefully direct it, and let the seeking go forth from my being to locate and beckon the One who responds to such calls. The Original Desire is waking within me, my heart is beginning to realize that above and beyond all else, it loves and yearns for the One. My heart loves the beauty, the peace, the power, the majesty, the unity in multiplicity, the love, the light, and the process, the day by day restless battle to find rest. It loves the strength and the independence to continue the walk on its own two feet, step by sacred step. Thus does it seek to give itself to the One, to dedicate its life and consecrate all its actions to the One. The innermost core of my heart seeks the beloved, the transcendent, the immanent, the nothingness, the immediate everythingness. I seek the One.

I am the will to seek. As in meditation, so in my daily round of activities. In both modes of activity/being I am the indomitable persistence to return again and again and again and again – gently, compassionately – to return to the center from which the One is sought. Through the distraction, I return to the still point; through the mental mismanagement of the truth, I return to the heart; through the temptations to satisfy the separate self’s endless cravings and aversions, I return gently to the true desire; through the cramped places of unknowing and pain, I return calmly to an even minded hope; through the stress of the workday which rushes my mind into the next moment, I return my focus to the only moment, this one; through the scatterbrained thinking of the everyday self, I return with discipline to single pointed-ness; through the deafening roar of western world noise and distortion, I return again to the quiet. I am the will to persist.

I am he who repeats the name of the nameless over and over in my thoughts, in my mantras, in my actions; ceaselessly I am he who prays to see and to know the face of the faceless. I have and I am the will to seek.

With all my heart I love and seek the One.
Infinity is right here;
Eternity is right now.
I am building a bridge to them,
I am choosing them,
I am that bridge.
I am the will to seek.