Fill Your Bucket Now and Drink
Everything on the outside changes -- our lives a kind of time lapse photography from the moment we are born to the moment we exit, stage left.
A seed is planted. It sprouts. It flowers. Bees come. Night comes. The flower closes and eventually its petals fall to earth, nourishment for whatever comes next.
But while we're here (and we are here!), let your flower bloom. Let it open to the sun. Be as beautiful as you are. Enjoy the sky overhead and the ground below. Indeed, enjoying this moment is what it's all about -- not what happened before or what you think will happen next. This is the moment we were born for -- to enjoy it in full glory, to sprout, to bloom, to let go.
Whatever helps you appreciate this moment, embrace it all the way. Whatever doesn't, let it go.
One of the extraordinary services that Prem Rawat provides, as far as I can tell, is ushering people into this moment.
"Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Step right up! Welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth -- YOU!"
No matter where you're from or what your plans might be for tomorrow, this is the moment -- the field beyond right-doing and wrong-doing that Rumi wrote about. The peace that passes all understanding. Or, as a very bald Zen Master once said, "What is there at this moment that you lack?"
HINT: Nothing.
There is nothing that you lack -- especially not the stuff on your bucket list. It's fine, of course, to have a bucket list, but it's also fine for that bucket to be full right now.
It's raining! It's pouring! Fill your bucket now and drink!
PremRawat.com
TimelessToday
The Prem Rawat Foundation
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2023Enchanting Song by Cara Tower
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2023When the Red Sea Parts
Two days ago I had a very interesting experience upon walking into the town of Catskill for my morning coffee and scone. Halfway there, I started feeling like I was on my death bed -- the time of life when I was preparing to leave this world.
Much to my surprise, it was totally blissful. There was no fear, no holding on, no bargaining, and no regrets. Free. I was absolutely free. Gone was the drama of everything. In it's place, only pure being.
Nothing was undone. Nothing needed to be done. There was nothing I had done that I wished I hadn't done. Perfect. It was all perfect, this feeling, that is -- the feeling of just how perfect everything is, was, and will be.
This moment, upon walking into town for my latte and scone, was a great liberation, a moment out of time, a visitation from the other side of sense-making -- not so much a "sneak preview" of what's to come, but the EXPERIENCE, however brief, that behind and beyond the various scenes of my life I've played out with varying degrees of skill, surrender, gratitude, struggle, doubt, drama, and laughter was a place of perfect peace, a realm of existence needing nothing to make it better, different, or more than it already was -- or should I say, IS.
In this moment, no effort was needed, only consciousness -- not the kind of consciousness that had to be attained, accessed, or climbed like some kind of spiritual ladder -- but a consciousness that is everywhere, always, and forever.
Free Parking in Monopoly. Home base in a child's game of tag. An infinite Sunday where not only the Lord is resting, but all of us, including me, are in perfect repose -- a resting most arresting. Yes, there was a sky overhead and ground beneath my feet.
And yes, there was somewhere I was going and somewhere I had come from, but none of it mattered -- not because the sky and the ground and the various longitudes and latitudes of my life didn't matter, but because, in this liberated death bed state of walking into town, they were all just stage props.
"All the world's a stage," wrote Shakespeare. "And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts."
Yes, indeed, Willie, my man! Many parts! And while those many parts are being played, there is the inevitable moment where the Red Sea parts. "Cut" yells the Director. "It's a wrap!"
And so it is. And so it shall be for each and every one of us -- here, on planet Earth, for just a little while even if it often seems like a loooong time.
So many actors! So many scenes. So much popcorn, the audience either clapping, snoring, or wondering where to have dinner when the show is over -- which, of course, is ALSO part of the play.
I'm not exactly sure how this stuff works, but when it comes right down to it, life is a GIFT, a big, beautiful gift. Do we deserve it? I'll leave that question to the pundits. All I know is this: life IS a gift, a precious gift, a holy gift, a divine gift -- and all of us -- you, me, the people you like and the people you don't like, get a chance to open it.
The soy latte, by the way, was quite delicious and so was the scone, no thoughts of "I really should be eating something healthier" anywhere in sight. And with that, my friends, I wish you well no matter what you do or don't do today, no matter where you go or don't. Yes, the journey you are on may be a long one, but know this: each step is also an arrival.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:40 AM | Comments (2)
