This Terrible Love, a journal of nonduality

THE IMPOSSIBLE QUESTION   Sometimes a question comes floating from the back of the room in a fragile voice, as if the questioner had just quieted her sobbing long enough to speak and be heard. Everyone hushes, and there is a silence reverberating through the satsang as the question mark hangs in the air like a feather, until it slowly falls and the guru picks it up.   These are the questions he hates having to answer. He knows there is no true answer to any of the questions he is ever asked, but those few that have that tinge of sadness and echo in their delicate and desperate expression, so sincere it brings tears to his eyes, are almost painful. He knows there is an answer in his repertoire, he has thousands, rephrased every time so they always seem like he is spontaneously talking directly to each seeker. It is something he is known for, the intimacy, the love.   He would like to go backstage and cry, but the impulse quickly passes. The emotions that used to flood him ...

Part One, The Language Problem The famed guru was effusively talking to the crowd, saying everything was love, that it was all god. From their questions and comments he realized they had their own interpretations of those words, and had no idea what he was talking about. He left the satsang, and vanished from the scene. Years later, at a country western bar somewhere in the Himalayas, one of his old followers saw him at a booth in the corner, scribbling away in a notebook with volumes of dictionaries and a large thesaurus on the table. The former follower told him how much he was missed, and asked if his guru would ever return and speak to people once again. The guru stopped writing, nodded his head, and said, “Yes, yes, absolutely. I intend to give many talks! And this time, all of my teachings will be spoken with absolute clarity. Just as soon as I find some words that don’t already have definitions!” 💓   Part Two, Happy Thoughts The guru told the gathering that th...

From the time she was three, Miranda was a dancer. She knew that dance was the only thing that gave life meaning, and when she danced, she glimpsed the freedom from the weight of thought and separation that lifted from her mind as her body flew through the air and both defied and honored the pull of gravity. Her mother was a dancer and a dance teacher, and she recognized her daughter’s potential. Both she and her mother lived to realize the dream whereby Miranda would achieve true mastery over her art form, and become recognized as a master of the dance. The path would be long. She studied all of the great teachers and they had many techniques. She knew she had to practice endlessly and renounce the life others took for granted. She sought out the greatest living masters, followed the teachings of those living and dead, and her devotion burned within like an eternal flame no matter what befell her in the mundane world of ordinary events. From trauma to depression to dysf...

This is a love affair with love itself. Everyone is my beloved; all the appearances of transient names and faces that flicker on the screen of dreams we call life, the only place we seem to exist. Everyone is made of love; everyone is love itself. There is nothing you can do that will ever take you outside of this dream of love. The story you tell about who you are or are not, the songs you sing, your suffering and hope, or the peaceful ease of bliss as you seem to dissolve into what simply is--- none of that separates you from the love that we are, none of that matters at all. This is one love song that is not even one, simply undivided. Love is not personal, for there is no center to this love from which I can look out and see you as separate. No center from where I can feel anything for any separate appearance, including this Miranda character who is simply being lived, animated for a time like a leaf floating in a river. The movie plays on a flat screen, and yet it s...