A Daily Dance with Shiva

Have I died yet today? Have I let go of all the energies that currently pull me into this and that? Have I stilled myself for a while, to assert and re-establish my contact with the ground? Shiva, the destroying aspect of the Absolute (in Hinduism), makes space for new life to prosper. Can I dance His dance, and experience renewal each and every day? Do I dare be new today? What is THIS very moment? What does it call me to be? In which way does it create me? Yes, here I am, open and free to listen.

The struggles, obligations, demands, opinions, ideas, identities, and worries we carried yesterday, are to be consumed in the holy fire of being, so that we can face this moment with the freshness and vigilance of spring. Let us taste the pure awareness of our being. Truly it is free from all these things. It wants for nothing, but simply is.

Let us allow ourselves to simply be like that. Let's die away from all the notions we have of who we are, what we want, and what Life is. Breath deeply, and experience the sensations of being. Receive them in their utter simplicity. Can we do so without adding anything? Can we do so without analyzing and labeling what right now IS? There are no questions here. There are no problems to solve. There is simply being. Movement.

There, something calls for my attention. A baby cries. Listen the sound of it. Feel the vibration of it. Welcome the experience of it. It plays with my ear. A small sensation of pain right there inside the ear. Welcome pain. How do you feel? What is your nature? I walk, feet on the floor. There is the form or the baby. How sweet. I lift it up and pull it to my chest. Sensations. Warmth. Life. I don't demand the baby to be silent. Feel the soles of the feet on the tiles. Feel the pressure of the chest against the infant. I allow it to cry for as long as it wants. I just do what I know to do, and rock it slowly back and forth. There is no hurry. I'm not trying to be in two places at once. There is only the matter of priority. The phone rings, and the food in the oven calls for my attention. I move steadily to the phone, and turn it off. How does the button feel against my finger? Smooth. I put down the crying baby on the floor, and move to the oven. Listen to the cries. They intensify, and change pitch for a while. Now, the handle of the oven. A little warm. Opening. Heat in my face. Slowly and carefully I take out the food and place it somewhere safe. Only ever one thing at a time. Always present to what happens. No demands. Simple being. No rush. There is the baby again. I walk back and start comforting it once more. Stay present to the sensations in the body, and the awareness in which all this appears. Have faith in being. Let the baby cry.

Through a Mystery the Universe of forms came into being. It expanded and created stars and galaxies. Stars died and planets were born. Simple organisms and plants were brought to life, and then more complex forms, animals, and finally beings. Was there a problem during this process? Who went through great stress to make all this happen? Naturally, and simply, all these things evolved. Through being, being came into being.

Our lives and actions are this very process, and it is still going on. Our only problem is that we do not trust it. We do not allow it to happen as it happens. We fight it. We thus rebel against the Lord, our maker. We make demands on reality, and we go to war with it, to realize our version of Life, as if we, separate from the Universe, could control it by ourselves. What happened to 'Thy will be done'?

I am not talking about passivity, but speak again about acceptance, and perspective. When does living turn into problems? Where does it happen? What is a problem? I once saw a film about newborn pikes, and how they grew into maturity, by consuming their brothers and sisters. As soon as one of the siblings had grown to be a fraction larger than the others, it ate them – swallowed them whole. In many beautiful lakes there are great pikes swimming around. Is the cannibalism of pikes a problem? Should we teach them manners?

Do we dare to let go of ego here, and see to what extent problems are made by us? Calming down, and letting go of ourselves for a while, we are given perspective. When we stand firmly in the purity and simplicity of being, it is easier to see what is what, and how we paint reality in our image, rather than the Lords. By dying away from this distortion of Truth, and by ceasing to fight the Lord's process, we become able to accept it for what it truly is. Seeing it clearly, we dare enter it, and when we become One with it, we have fully entered His Kingdom.

Feel the life-giving breath, going in and out, automatically, then ask yourself again; What is most important today?

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6:26-6:27)

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself..."
(Matthew 6:33-6:34)