This Terrible Love, a journal of nonduality

I get asked a lot of difficult questions. I answer some of them, even though I always say none of my answers are true. They are just the programming. Like asking Siri on your iphone. Some ask how they can get enlightened. Some ask how I got enlightened. Some ask if I am enlightened. Some ask why I think I am enlightened when they are enlightened and it is clear I am not. Some ask if I want them to enlighten me and begin to explain how they will do this. Those are all fun, as they are so fundamentally unanswerable it’s like being in college again staying up all night with nerd friends pondering the nature of the Universe and the meaning of life.   Sometimes people ask a question so mind-blowing I have to turn off the computer and go outside for a walk. A question that is so enormous it defies imagination. They ask me, so, Miranda, what did you do yesterday?   Wow. Yesterday! First, I think it must be a trick question, but they are serious. They even tell me what they “did” ye...

The only reason she wanted to be a dancer w as that all she ever wished for was to do one thing so beautifully that everyone’s heart would stop and they would melt forever in an eternal ephemeral instant beyond time that would linger in the afterglow of their lives and they would never forget that moment of perfection, that absolute wonder and joy. Just one moment when it would be as if she had burst into flames and could ignite the warmth in even the coldest hearts, the girl who when she was 11 in Sunday School and the teacher talked of how great Jesus’ sacrifice had been piped up and said, "I would do that," because of course, who wouldn’t go through any agony, any suffering, any pain, to save the world (and especially if in 3 days you get to come back to life, but the nuns were mad enough without that comment). She never knew it was a world that never needed saving. A world that never needed any one to do any thing at all, for the beauty and the love were never missing. Al...

    You find yourself drawn to their words, over and over again, binge-watching their videos like other people watch the latest Netflix hit. Is it something they know, or perhaps something they no longer know? Something they have lost, an illusion dispelled? And yet the dream remains.  It seems there is someone pointing to the nature of the shared dream of life, even as they point to the illusion of there being any other or any separate self to experience the dream. You read book after book, but language turns the endless blanket of stars that is the night sky into a few words on a white page.    And so often, teachers see how the words they use fall like rain before they reach the ears of the seeker, let alone their hearts and minds. So sometimes they try to sound like they have a path, a technique, a method. Yet it seems most know this is not possible, for if it is a gate-less gate, how can there ever be a key?    Sometimes teachers seem to simp...

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...